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Wag
 
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Andy Rimmer (4/19/2008)
Solicitors are not particularly useful, yet are one of the best paid professions,as such I used them as an example- Matt took offence and suggested that my opinion was subjective- which it isn't, it's based on many years of 1st hand experience (hence the examples).
If they aren't useful then why do people use them, regardless of the cost?
Andy Rimmer (4/19/2008)
If youth workers, teachers, nurses, firefighters paramedics, police officers, civil servantsor social workersgot paid anything like as much solicitors then perhaps I'd have used them as an example in the first place.
If you honestly think the services of nurses are worth more than those of solicitors, why don't you just seek out medical institutions where nurses are paid more and/or use cheaper forms of legal assistance/do it yourself?
I think it's silly to say "these people are overpaid" - realistically, all you can say is how much these things are worth to you. You say you think nurses and teachers ought to be paid more - fair enough, how much are you paying them/planning to pay them? I.e. are you registering your belief that these people are providing undervalued services by paying more for better trained nurses/teachers? If you are putting money/planning to put money into more expensive private hospitals/schools then you are saying "these people deserve to be paid more" and you're directly increasing the wages (and working conditions) of the profession.
Marios
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Prodigal
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| If you're trying to make a society work you need some professions more than others- I think that solicitors are a luxury item- we don't need them, we use them because they've convinced that we have to. Whereas if you take the nurses out of our hospitals, watch the bodies pile up. BUT... This isn't about bloody solicitors! So does anyone apart from the aspiring solicitors- desperate to defend their anticipated overinflated salaries*- have anything to contribute to a discussion about Crime and Punishment. *'cos lets face it, if it wasn't about the money you'd work in a Law centre or Advocacy project.
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Initiate
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But can't the same be said about; farmers there we don't need them because we can grow our own food and builders because we can build our own houses and teachers because we can learn from a text books and about 60% of jobs? Just because there not totally necessary doesn't mean there not important.
Semper Fidelis - you'll learn what it means.
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Wag
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Andy Rimmer (4/19/2008)
I think that solicitors are a luxury item- we don't need them, we use them because they've convinced that we have to.
Well, exactly. If you're happy to resolve your conflicts with a bit of healthy wife-beating, get the mob in or ask your local muslim cleric to rule on an issue you don't need to spend money on a solicitor. I've never spent money on a solicitor - although I did once blag myself a free consultation over a tenancy contract (but having had mildly costly grief with landlords over contracts before I think actually paying for it at their normal rates wouldn't have been unreasonable).
Since you have used solicitors, why did you do it? Having been through it, are you saying you'd prefer to have used some other recourse?
Marios
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Prodigal
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| Does any one actually have anything to say about crime and punishment or are we all to busy defending solicitors fees- it just seems odd that none of you are interested in the causes, yet you get all hot under the collar when it's sugested that solicitors are over paid? Marios I used solicitors because I mistakenly believed (like most people)that it was the only way to get a divorce, residence order etc. As to the other experiences, I worked alongside solicitors as part of my job- supporting young people and was again disappointed because I kind of expected a court appointed solicitor to ensure that a)the defendant's rights were upheld- instead of taking the crappy attitude they did (i.e how soon can I rid of this- I've got a lunch appointment). b) buying into the criminals view that they hadn't commited a crime if they hadn't been convicted, or that getting the defendant "off" was more important than uncovering the truth. C) not allowing the defendant to speak, turning their accounts of events around, leaving out important facts and factors (all basics which are taught on volunteer advocacy training) So we still have no reason why they charge/get paid so much- which is at the end of the day the only real link to this thread.
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Champion
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Godisabullet (4/18/2008)
[quote]
If a priest was doing the job of a solicitor, wouldn't that make the priest a solicitor? I don't really understand your point.
No it would seem you dont, my point was that in certain cultures and societies that, preists and religious figures have arbitrated disputes and criminal cases, with out the extensive "training" of our solicitors, are paid less and have a lesser tendancy to interfere in the affairs of democratically elected governments, or release the guilt due to technicalities.
That's a gross generalisation. There are plenty of solicitors who spend their lives scraping a living on legal aid cases, helping people who have nowhere else to turn. What is it about them that you hate so much? You think that the legal profession is more autonomous than the Civil Service?
Yes it is really, but then I've not had legal training so I'm not a morally superior being, so there are plenty of solicitors who help the poor? Well thats nice really, and its a good job there paid for their hard work with legal aid payments, and frankly, starting wage of 30k a year, its not exactly as if solicitors are poor? And as for autonomy, the police are regulary condemmed by various civil liberty organisations for having a regulatory body consisting of police officers, as its generally bad for cops to regulate cops, I really cant see how its going to be any better for lawyers to regulate lawyers as time and time again they have shown that they care solely about their own intrests.
Sharia law isn't politically correct where I come from. J
Really? no but it is a good example of my point that you can have law and order without overpaid lawyers who are accountable only to themselves, dictate policy of governments, and are paid far more than their worth.
though that is just my opinion, though one final pet niggle, if laywers are supposed to be for the people and all that, why is it legal documents are so difficult to read and why are almost all legal terms latin? Surelylegal dos nd terms should be in english and easily understandable
Anyway sorry to andy rimmer, I belive that the root of this "lawyers are over paid for what they do" argument just spiralled of from where someone mentioned that the legal system itself is flawed and is seen as making things worse
____________________________________As the old robot saying goes "does not compute"
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Wag
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Xollob (4/20/2008)
No it would seem you dont, my point was that in certain cultures and societies that, preists and religious figures have arbitrated disputes and criminal cases, with out the extensive "training" of our solicitors
Not exactly the same extensive training of _our_ solicitors, but clearly Bishops/Rabbis/Ulema do receive what coculturalists might call extensive training in their years in various religious schools/seminaries.
Xollob (4/20/2008)
are paid less
Depends on the time and the place - it's hard to think of places/times where these religious positions have received very substantial remuneration in one way or another. Are you comparing Saudi Arabian Ulema with British solicitors?
Xollob (4/20/2008)
have a lesser tendancy to interfere in the affairs of democratically elected governments
How many democratically elected governments have religious clerics as their default judiciary? Earlier people seemed to be complaining because they felt that the judiciary _weren't_ interfering with the affairs of democratically elected governments and were just administering the law (which generally isn't the case - no group in Britain has been as effectively vocal about the recent alterations to British civil rights than the judiciary).
Xollob (4/20/2008)
or release the guilt due to technicalities.
That's rather the point - if they have been released, then in the opinion of the court they haven't been proven to be guilty. You may feel certain that they were guilty and that, if it wasn't for some "technicality" (like the technicalities that were ignored during the trial of the Birmingham Six) calling the evidence of their guilt into doubt, they _would_ have been declared guilty - but they weren't.
Xollob (4/20/2008)
Really? no but it is a good example of my point that you can have law and order without overpaid lawyers who are accountable only to themselves, dictate policy of governments, and are paid far more than their worth.
And in which country is that the case?
Marios
P.S. It's interesting that whenever people talk about the dangerous effects of immigration on British society, they tend to argue that it may have a detrimental effect because people from some countries won't understand British culture - they won't understand the concept of religious and political tolerance, they won't under the importance of the Rule of Law, they won't understand basic British history like the importance of rights enshrined in the Magna Carta ...
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Wag
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| Punishment. Protection. Deterrent. Rehabilitation. In order to have a working penal system one needs to decide which of the above four points are the aim of your system and in what degree to each other. Systems working on a single one of those aspects do not generally work.
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 Posted Monday, April 21, 2008 10:17 AM |
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