Well his intention is clear. But stating you are guaranteed to win if you are in the right strikes me as naive at best and woefully neglectful of reality at worst.
It's probably best stated like "lawyers are not _always_ like Pokemon". Sometimes they very definitely are.
It's nice that the lawyer may have good intentions, but the legal theory is still crackpot.
I don't cheer for silly legal theories to prevail just because of good intentions. The unintended consequences of silly legal theories prevailing are likely to be higher than any good achieved in this one instance.
I think the author makes it known that when you respond like that, you better not be bluffing at all. It's puffing out your feathers AND getting ready to do battle in court. The key is don't lie down and take it from somebody if you're not in the wrong (he qualified this at the end, unfortunately it should have been at the start methinks). I agree with the rest of your post, though.
But, based on your statement, we safely assume you're not a judge or even a legal professional?
So without alternative argument from other legal professionals it is safe to assume that the legal professionals who crafted the statement, do so for it's effectiveness in achieving their goal, which is winning this suit and not for PR or convincing you personally.
I agree the lawyer is doing the right thing for his role - perhaps I should have phrased as "ridiculous for this argument to be taken seriously" or some such.
this is precisely why I was suprised to find out the author is actually a lawyer. I know you're joking ... but reality of legal practice entails so much more than just a "right"/"rational"/"convincing" decision (hell, there's an eternal debate in legal theory about whether or not this is even a sensible thing to ask for).
frankly I had a hard time understanding the response, my feelings on it were:
This guy is too arrogant and insecure to just admit he got it wrong
Failing that this guy is too stupid to come up with a rationally understandable argument why his report is worthwhile anyway, or in place of too stupid which after all is rude, to poor in the skill of rhetoric to craft a response that does not make them sound like a raving loony.
Although when you're arguing you own case the emotional connection makes other things more difficult, hence the saying that a lawyer who represents themselves in court has a fool for a client.
So I guess I just sort of discount the response as in too weird to decipher. Probably shouldn't do that though.
> HN skews toward believing that if you can be sued, you will be.
Maybe it's more like, it doesn't matter how correct you are unless you can afford a good lawyer. The infinite monkey theorem is not applicable. Lawyers who make the bulk of their money from being on the suing side (or not necessarily suing, just being hired to be able to sue) rather than the defending side are not monkeys randomly pressing keys on their keyboards.
Then again, not everyone's threat model for "getting sued" is the same.
The statement he made will have the effect of further reducing the number of cases that he has to fight...
If he were really interested in troll-stomping over all other interests he would be better off saying "We may have won this one, but most of the time we like to settle".
He's not pointing out something subjective; he's giving you a heads-up on what the lawyers are going to say to ensure that their case against you comes with a preliminary injunction.
That's fair yea - so I think there a few ways this lawyer's statements can be proven to be nonsense.
The numbers in that formulary are mostly unknown so I'd be more comfortable attacking the statement from the angle I outlined above but I agree the numbers clearly don't match what the lawyer is implying.
HE's not a lawyer, and he's not correct. See the blog comments for examples: vaguely right, but really this is therefore about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
But Us0r is talking about their intent in pursuing the suit.
Yeah, I got the part about WeWork's "intent" already and wasn't "confused" by it, as you so kindly suggest. My point is he's using manipulative language to get his point across, which I find distasteful.
My feelings exactly. As usual it feels like lawyers are saying "just do this even though it's BS so in a future court room you can bring it up". You're not pessimistic, just realistic.
If that's what he's aiming for, it's even dumber than if he thinks he's mounting a straight defence
"Too arrogant and rash to play by the rules" is a case for the prosecution, not the defence. People get ruled mentally unfit to stand trial because they can't string sentences together or have the sort of verifiable mental health condition that'll see them institutionalised anyway, not because they're running round breaking other rules
Same goes for the my client's background is in trading where in some markets losses are inevitable, and he deeply regrets not having more oversight and understanding of the compliance issues he paid other people to handle defence being a lot more persuasive to a jury if he's not blogging about how the bankruptcy team should have handed the company back to him so he could win all the money back...
It's probably best stated like "lawyers are not _always_ like Pokemon". Sometimes they very definitely are.
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