Orcus said:
I am a lawyer. Your comments on estoppel are all wrong and in fact nothing that you mention above is correct. People, the law is not for laymen. Dont post legal stuff if you dont know what you are talking about.
Clark
Isn't it so much better to be able to say, "IAAL" than "IANAL," Clark?
In all seriousness, Clark's right. This is neither the time nor place to be an armchair lawyer. And you're
certainly foolish if you take the advice of one.
HIJACK: Now, I personally think that the fact that the law has become so convoluted and so complex and so riddled with ivory-tower-ism and deliberate obfuscation on the part of a "special interest group" that wants a monopoly on law itself that the layman cannot understand the law is a HORRIBLY BAD thing... especially when said laymen are expected to obey the law (one has a hard time obeying that which one does not understand), but that's a discussion for another time or place.
Don't get me wrong, I don't envy Clark the time, energy, effort, or money he spent (and/or borrowed) to become a lawyer - he's entitled to the rewards and fruits of his labor. However, on general principles, I dislike intellectual elitism of any type. That's
not a comment directed at you, personally, Clark, nor your statement of fact that the law is not (any longer) for laymen. It's a comment aimed at the general state of society as a whole, with no single individual or group to blame as a root cause.
From a sociological perspective, the fact that the law has gotten to the point where laymen - even intelligent and well-educated laymen whose study does not happen to lie in "law" are now expected to obey the law and NOT expected to understand it (mostly because understanding is deliberately denied them by an elitist group), it just doesn't sit well with me and in fact smacks slightly of tyrrany to me. In fact, use of the term "layman" to refer to a "nonlawyer" has religious overtones of lines set up between the "clergy/leaders" who are educated in the mysteries of their religion (law) and those who are not eductated in the mysteries of religion is a little bothersome as well (perhaps common usage has blunted the meaning of the terms some, but their lingusitic roots are interesting). But as this hijack is devolving into the political - and religious - I'll shut up before I get this thread closed. Suffice to say I STILL subscribe to a modified Einstein quote - "if it isn't clear enough for a reasonably intelligent six-year old, you don't really understand it yourself." Anything that the common man is expected to interact with and obey should by default be expected to be comprehensible to him with a only a very little effort and a healthy dose of common sense on his part.
--The Sigil
