Comment by rayiner
9 hours ago
Having done both, lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words. Often very well paid tinkering, but that's true for programmers as well.
9 hours ago
Having done both, lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words. Often very well paid tinkering, but that's true for programmers as well.
> Having done both [software and law], lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words
Having also done both: In legal drafting work, there's less systematic pre-release testing before the equivalent of a "program" is loosed upon the world. There's not much in the way of counterparts to software unit testing and regression testing, in part because legal-drafting clients can be vociferous in demanding that their lawyers keep costs down.
Lawyers who like to tinker with words can fuck things up more often and at greater scale — e.g., by inflicting compulsory burdens and costs on others — than can most programmers. That includes, e.g., contract drafters and litigation counsel, plus lobbyists trying to influence draft legislation and regulations.
I'm not-infrequently dismayed by the quality of the contracts I review for clients because of the "tinkering with words" by the lawyers on the other side of the deal. Back when I did IP litigation, I was sometimes likewise dismayed by the bullshit arguments that some lawyers felt free to make in their court papers because what the hell, the worst that can happen is almost never more than the judge just saying "no." And as mostly a law professor these days, I review court opinions all the time and am regularly amazed how judges (and their law clerks, such as Rayiner used to be) can be so patient in responding to such arguments.
> Having also done both: In legal drafting work, there's less systematic pre-release testing before the equivalent of a "program" is loosed upon the world. There's not much in the way of counterparts to software unit testing and regression testing, in part because legal-drafting clients can be vociferous in demanding that their lawyers keep costs down.
Yeah, at least in litigation you get relatively immediate feedback in the form of a decision. Seems anxiety inducing to me to draft these contracts and have no feedback loop unless something blows up years later.
I don't disagree. You can add medical doctors to the list as well, lots of nerds but also a lot of clout chasers and money-grubbers who couldn't care less about the profession. I don't want to see programming take the same path.
It already has? Clout-chasers and money grubbers go for all the big tech jobs in droves.
And its been that way for at least a decade.