| | |
|
AlexHuFirstPaper 4 - 27 Jun 2009 - Main.EbenMoglen
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
| | | One possible method of helping a lawyer fulfill his responsibility to society is to make the bar license contingent on a mandatory number of pro bono hours. This system could require that a certain percent (e.g., 5%) of the attorney’s billable hours per year, up to a hard cap maximum (e.g., 100 hours), be dedicated to pro bono work. After all, it seems only fair that society’s permission to practice law is conditioned on a lawyer’s continued willingness to uphold the tenets of his field. | |
<
< |
- Your writing is completely competent and under control, but it's not clear what all the rhetoric is serving. This reads to me like Law Day logic-chopping rather than a real idea in the process of exposition. There seem to be two propositions: (1) Laymen are ignorant of the law and therefore are more optimistic than they should be about both its efficiency and its justice; and (2) Lawyers are as well, but theirs is not forgivable ignorance because they are the people on whom knowledge imposes responsibility. I'm not sure whether (1) is true, and you provide no supporting evidence. Apparently it doesn't matter whether (2) is descriptively true, because the real point is
- normative
- Lawyers should care about the state of the law, and should hold themselves responsible for its condition. This is simply bar association rhetoric, as I say, unless accompanied by some specific call to action, which is missing here.
- In my view, the problem lies at the level of generality at which you approached your topic. More specificity would have enabled you to present an idea about something in particular, rather than a speculation without referent.
| >
> |
- I don't think the "call to action" you added in response to my comments is actually much of an answer. Mandatory pro bono practice by no means ensures continued learning of the law, because the practitioner could gave away time in her specialty. You don't mention the continuing legal education requirement of the bar, which is actually directed at dealing with the problem you are purporting to analyze. I recognize the effort that went into revising this draft. But more effort directed at research and evaluation, which means more commitment to the subject, was necessary to make a fundamental improvement.
| | | \ No newline at end of file |
|
| Revision 4 | r4 - 27 Jun 2009 - 19:08:16 - EbenMoglen |
| Revision 3 | r3 - 14 Apr 2009 - 05:00:35 - AlexHu |
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |