Lawyers weren't meant to serve the "common man". Serfs didn't have lawyers, they had village chieftains and lords to serve as judges and vassals or warriors as executioners. Lawyers are a relatively new thing. Hell, in ancient times things like the Code of Hammurabi, the Laws of Solon or the Twelve tablets in the Roman Forum were considered game changers because up till those points the only people that actually knew the law were the rich and the aristocracy - which usually were one and the same, but which sometimes "sold" their knowledge in the form or greek orators. Hell, at one point Rome tried passing laws to bar people that acted as lawyers from taking fees. It wasn't until the mid first century common era that lawyers became a legal and recognized profession in Rome.Nealithi wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2020 10:04 am Darn it, you end these with comments that make me want to make a smart alec comment.
That said, I am glad for the rules in your country. They sound well versed. And I use the more ludicrous example so it is easier to convey in this forum without us knowing each other nor our respective fields. What I was alluding to was someone saying something you know is wrong. But you must take it as fact because it is a trial.
As to lawyers talking their own language. Why not have them all speak latin to the jury if the only ones that need to understand what they are saying are other lawyers? Sorry if that seems combative but lawyerese being binding to the common man but the common man has a hard time comprehending it because of how it is written sounds like a deliberate trap.
Nonetheless laws have become public and lawyers have become a thing, but that didn't happen over night, it happened at the tail end of the middle ages when burgers were becoming a thing and merchants started to require impartial judges and defendants that could spend their time getting to know the law while they spend their time practicing their own trades.
The history of lawyers might not be that old, but it's old enough that words changed meaning in common parlance since the profession started. Worse off is the fact that lawyers used to serve the rich as opposed to the lower classes, worse because that means they would already not be using the vernacular most people were accustomed to. Standardized education and legal reforms during the enlightenment and industrial revolution solved part of the problem, but language kept on changing and well, there's a reason lawyers don't like changing what words mean - it results in the actual meaning of legal documents changing. Just look at the US's "corporations are people" ruling that gave corporations the right to suport political candidates without any limit. And yes, I'm painfully aware judges are responsible for that idiocy. If you change the meaning of words then a law that said one thing 50 years ago will say something different today and something entirely different 50 years from now. I dunno about you, but the idea that what the law says changes from one generation to the other without anybody actually having a say in the matter doesn't seem like a good thing to me.
