For CdM: Bullshit jobs

[DGuller]

there are a few problems with lawyers, namely that they don't seem to attach any value to the truth.  The objective of a lawyer, and what the law asks of a lawyer is to represent the interest of his client.  End of the line.  Lying is considered a good way to achieve your objective.

You're wrong. 

In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly:

make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person; or
fail to disclose a material fact to a third person when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client, unless disclosure is prohibited by Rule 1.6. [preserving client confidentiality, which has its own exceptions]

A lawyer shall not knowingly:
make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal;
fail to disclose a material fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by the client;
fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or
offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer has offered material evidence and comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures.

The zealous advocacy portions you refer to are severely qualified.

The Soviet constitution granted freedom of speech to Soviet citizens as well.  With these things, the devil is with enforcement, and my impression is that you really have to fuck up big time, or do it publicly, for a professional to incur the wrath of his professional organization.  "Professional courtesy" isn't just for speeding cops and prosecutors.

[Syt]

Anyways, my two cents.

I find that in modern companies a lot resources go into dealing with internal issues or relatively abstract issues between companies (legal concerns - real and perceived, administrative red tape, Sarbanes Oxley, outside consultants to untangle or worsen the mess ...) instead of to directly serving the client: producing your stuff, providing a service etc.

Especially with the legal side of things (and let's not forget the jumbled mess that is tax law, keeping hordes of tax advisers and tax lawyers in business) the question is not whether or not it's necessary (unfortunately it is), but if this is a good state for an economy to be in when one of the most prevalent concerns in any business is whether you might be liable for something and then spend a lot of time and effort to minimize that risk.



Personally, having spent my whole career so far pushing paper, I can understand the job frustrations, and it's sometimes not easy to see what impact your job has.

My first job was accounts payable in a construction company. While I didn't see our construction sites, at least paying our suppliers' bills was pretty tangible.

Next up was paying doctors and hospitals throughout Eastern Europe who participated in clinical studies. Still somewhat tangible, even though I would never have any contact with recipients of the payments, only feedback from colleagues in the respective countries (if that). At the same time there was a lot of IMHO unnecessary bureaucracy, because everyone wanted to cover their ass, and the corporation wanted as much oversight as possible. Which meant that every bill I paid had to be signed by up half a dozen people or more. Not to mention constant audits and reviews. At least pharma research produces something tangible in the end.

Now I'm processing franchise contracts. The tangible benefit? I make sure someone's franchise appears in our system? Make sure that we've received our money? That our regions report their numbers on time? Honestly, I don't see it. I collect figures and send them to people who may or may not read them. I check paperwork, push back when signatures are missing, or the translation of the contracts is missing a paragraph. Yes, it's basically an advanced form of "Papers, Please", and some rules can change as frequently as in the game. And a large part of the job is whether a certain wording is acceptable to us, or what's up with the fee structure of a certain contract. I'm far removed from any real estate client (Agent => Office => Region => Us => International).



Do I enjoy my job? Enjoy is not the right word. I don't mind it, would be more accurate. It's well paid for what's expected, and I like the people I work with.

[Ideologue]

Is the premise that unless you are physically building something with your hands or operating a machine you aren't producing anything of value?

No.  Intangible goods and services can have value.  A live performance by a musician can have value.  An hour with a prostitute can have value.

However, until recreational lawsuits and criminal indictments exist, or people buy hornbooks for fun, I can't agree that lawyers produce anything.

The idea that lawyers add value to the economy rather than, as I said, at best, preserving value from destruction, is like saying the military adds value to the economy.  The health industry could perhaps also be included in this category.  It may seem like splitting hairs, since the value of the economy is increased when Canada is deterred from invasion or when someone does not die from cancer, but if organized violence were not a potential threat or illness did not exist, neither the military nor doctors would be necessary.  So with lawyers and the law in general, which defends against arbitrary state action, or, fundamentally, against anarchy.

I would not say they are unnecessary.

Yi: Lawyers' services have market value because of laws created by humans that necessitate lawyers to interpret, apply, and in some cases properly execute them.  Since lawyers often define when legal services are needed and create and inhabit the structures in which the law is interpreted, applied, and executed--much to their own profit and much to the detriment of clients and society, see, e.g. doc review, discovery as a form of extortion, law schools, nuisance lawsuits, unnecessary billing, and so on--that's the definition of rent-seeking as I understand it.  Perhaps I misused the word, however.

[Ideologue]

nvm, I just got caught up in the thread and understand it now.

Shit.

[Zanza]

Question to the corporate lawyers here: how much of your back office jobs like research or writing documents or whatever was already moved to India or similar places?

Writing documents is a corporate lawyers bread and butter.  Not sure why they would send out their own work.

Because Indians may be cheaper than Americans? Programming is a software companies bread and butter and they certainly send it to India. A lot of banks also have moved their back office operations to India, so I guess it can only be a question of time until that's done with legal services too. Writing a contract is something that doesn't need to be done onsite, so as soon as you have qualified resources in India, there is no reason not to have the work done there. I wonder if there are already Indian universities that teach American corporate law.   

[DontSayBanana]

Writing documents is a corporate lawyers bread and butter.  Not sure why they would send out their own work.

Because Indians may be cheaper than Americans? Programming is a software companies bread and butter and they certainly send it to India. A lot of banks also have moved their back office operations to India, so I guess it can only be a question of time until that's done with legal services too. Writing a contract is something that doesn't need to be done onsite, so as soon as you have qualified resources in India, there is no reason not to have the work done there. I wonder if there are already Indian universities that teach American corporate law.   

Can't speak for Germany or Canuckistan, but Americans have flocked to it as a byproduct of the service economy- with the time zone differential, an attorney can close up the office, forward the work to India, be charged cents on the dollars, have it completely drafted when the office opens in the morning, and bill the customer full rate.  It speeds up the flow of work, since it eliminates that pesky need for "sleep."

[CountDeMoney]

All regulatory stuff stays here, though, from HIPAA to SOX.  But hey, this isn't the first time you've mentioned how everything's been outsourced to India.  Don't know where that's coming from.

[ulmont]

Perhaps that perception is flawed - I certainly don't have any first hand knowledge - but that is certainly the impression I have from what limited dealing with lawyers in the business I've been associated with. Sure, they aren't supposed to come right out and lie, but that leaves a rather immense amount of room for plenty of dishonesty or simply omitting the truth.

I'm not sure exactly what dealings you guys are having where a lawyer would be talking to you or have any motivation to lie.  Lawyers are not allowed to talk to anyone represented by counsel except through their counsel, which means that in the context of any sort of meaningful business deal (with lawyers on both sides), the lawyers talk to their business guys and to the other side's lawyers (with occasional larger calls with lawyers for both sides and business guys for both sides).  Further, while there's certainly a motivation in a contested matter to put one's client's position in the most favorable light, this is again usually lawyer-lawyer (and, at the end of the day, determining whose interpretation of the contested facts is correct is what judges and juries are for).

And who enforces such a rule in any case?

Usually the Supreme Court of the appropriate jurisdiction.  For example, in this list of Georgia Supreme Court opinions, practically everything starting with "In the Matter of" is an order relating to lawyer discipline.
http://www.gasupreme.us/sc-op/opinion_lists/2013_opinions.php

The Soviet constitution granted freedom of speech to Soviet citizens as well.  With these things, the devil is with enforcement, and my impression is that you really have to fuck up big time, or do it publicly, for a professional to incur the wrath of his professional organization.  "Professional courtesy" isn't just for speeding cops and prosecutors.

Well, God forbid you let anything get in the way of your impression.

Because Indians may be cheaper than Americans? Programming is a software companies bread and butter and they certainly send it to India. A lot of banks also have moved their back office operations to India, so I guess it can only be a question of time until that's done with legal services too. Writing a contract is something that doesn't need to be done onsite, so as soon as you have qualified resources in India, there is no reason not to have the work done there. I wonder if there are already Indian universities that teach American corporate law.

There are some larger regulatory issues in play, like not being able to practice law in the United States (i.e., write the contracts for the bank) unless you are a member of the appropriate jurisdiction.  So the bank almost has to hire legal services from a local firm, which then has little motivation to outsource its work (among other factors, someone licensed in the jurisdiction would have to review all the work, etc. etc.).  Some document review (i.e., Ide's job) has gone to India, but not a lot in light of concerns over confidentiality and a preference to have licensed attorneys doing the review work.

[alfred russel]

Because Indians may be cheaper than Americans? Programming is a software companies bread and butter and they certainly send it to India. A lot of banks also have moved their back office operations to India, so I guess it can only be a question of time until that's done with legal services too. Writing a contract is something that doesn't need to be done onsite, so as soon as you have qualified resources in India, there is no reason not to have the work done there. I wonder if there are already Indian universities that teach American corporate law.

Or before. They haven't waited for that condition with other industries.

[Zanza]

Can't speak for Germany or Canuckistan, but Americans have flocked to it as a byproduct of the service economy- with the time zone differential, an attorney can close up the office, forward the work to India, be charged cents on the dollars, have it completely drafted when the office opens in the morning, and bill the customer full rate.  It speeds up the flow of work, since it eliminates that pesky need for "sleep."

Language-related outsourcing in Germany can typically only be done near-shore to Eastern Europe as you'll just not find people that can speak or write German in other regions of the world. Doesn't make sense to find the ten Indians that speak German to open a call-center there.

[garbon]

Because Indians may be cheaper than Americans? Programming is a software companies bread and butter and they certainly send it to India. A lot of banks also have moved their back office operations to India, so I guess it can only be a question of time until that's done with legal services too. Writing a contract is something that doesn't need to be done onsite, so as soon as you have qualified resources in India, there is no reason not to have the work done there. I wonder if there are already Indian universities that teach American corporate law.

Or before. They haven't waited for that condition with other industries.

Recently my company has moved everything back "in-house" so to speak to our offices in Malaysia.

[Zanza]

There are some larger regulatory issues in play, like not being able to practice law in the United States (i.e., write the contracts for the bank) unless you are a member of the appropriate jurisdiction.  So the bank almost has to hire legal services from a local firm, which then has little motivation to outsource its work (among other factors, someone licensed in the jurisdiction would have to review all the work, etc. etc.).  Some document review (i.e., Ide's job) has gone to India, but not a lot in light of concerns over confidentiality and a preference to have licensed attorneys doing the review work.

Only using American lawyers to review the work of five to ten Indians could still make sense. Confidentiality is something that can be enforced via civil law and it's not like companies shy from outsourcing their entire data processing to third parties.

[The Minsky Moment]

THe thing is ulmont, the perception is that those technical restrictions aside, the reality of legal practice in the corporate world is that those restrictions are not meaningful, nor are they typically of great concern.

Perhaps that perception is flawed - I certainly don't have any first hand knowledge - but that is certainly the impression I have from what limited dealing with lawyers in the business I've been associated with. Sure, they aren't supposed to come right out and lie, but that leaves a rather immense amount of room for plenty of dishonesty or simply omitting the truth.

There are a lot of lawyers and some no doubt conduct themselves dishonestly.  But that is not the norm, nor is it good practice in terms of serving the client's interest.  Dishonesty in a transaction is likely to expose the client to litigation (for fraudulent inducement) and the lawyer to professional complaint.  In the long run the lawyer's reputation is harmed and people will be reluctant to sit on the other side of the transactions.    Dishonesty in litigation is even worse practice - judges are usually pretty savvy about ferreting out the facts, and one of the worst things a lawyer can do in a case is shred their credibility with the court.  In the corporate world these considerations are usually even greater.

[Zanza]

All regulatory stuff stays here, though, from HIPAA to SOX.

Ah, that's of course nice when the government protects your bullshit business.

[crazy canuck]

THe thing is ulmont, the perception is that those technical restrictions aside, the reality of legal practice in the corporate world is that those restrictions are not meaningful, nor are they typically of great concern.

Perhaps that perception is flawed - I certainly don't have any first hand knowledge - but that is certainly the impression I have from what limited dealing with lawyers in the business I've been associated with. Sure, they aren't supposed to come right out and lie, but that leaves a rather immense amount of room for plenty of dishonesty or simply omitting the truth.

Lets be honest ourselves - you can be astoundingly dishonest while never breaking the technical restriction of "make a false statement of material fact". And who enforces such a rule in any case?

These are not "technical rules".  Lawyers cannot be "astoundingly dishonest" and stay within our rules of professional ethics.  If we breach them we get disbarred.  The Rules are enforced by the Law societies in each jurisdiction.  In the case of BC the board is made up of non lawyers and lawyers and enforcement of our code of conduct is rigorous.

If you have first hand knowledge of a dishonest lawyer then that is unfortunate.  In my experience, after having dealt with literally hundreds of lawyers over the course of my career, I have to say your situation is the exception.

In addition to our Code of Conduct is the practical reality that no one wants to deal with a dishonest lawyer - not the client, not other lawyers and certainly not the courts.  At the end of the day our reputation is all we have to offer to our clients and so our profession is self regulating in the practical sense that a dishonest lawyer will soon have little prospect for the future of their practice.