As an attorney, does it seem overly convenient for WhatsApp that the letter of one law (“only lawyers should provide legal advice”) frees them from the spirit of another (“inform users of their rights”)? Or perhaps this a question for a judge?

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otterley 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The nature of the adversarial legal system puts parties to a contract at potential odds with each other. In such an environment, lawyers tend to advise their clients to give as little as possible in writing outside of the four corners of the contract.

In other words, finding out your rights is your job. That’s why you should hire your own counsel if you think you’ve been wronged. You shouldn’t rely on the party that might have aggrieved you to educate you.

Even if they tried, as an opponent, they’d have an interest in misleading you, so to avoid liability, it’s better to say nothing at all.

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xnickb 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> That’s why you should hire your own counsel if you think you’ve been wronged.

Of course you'd say that as a lawyer. First you invent a language no one else can comprehend and then you recommend I pay you for translation.

If LLMs are good at anything, it's languages. So I am very hopeful the entire legal system will see an overhaul.

> finding out your rights is your job

No. It's the job of the state to educate and make information on this available and comprehensible for everyone. As long as I am paying taxes I expect the services provided to me documented properly.

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otterley 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> First you invent a language no one else can comprehend

It’s just English (or whatever the official language of the country you’re in is).

> It's the job of the state to educate and make information on this available

The state does make this information available. It’s still your job to learn it. They’re not going to beam it into your head.

Practicing law is like plumbing. You can try to do it yourself, or you can hire an expert to help. Most people are better off with an expert.

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schubidubiduba an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's not just English. Some words exist in normal english and law english, and yet have entirely different meanings. You have to study to understand the meanings. You have to study to understand the contexts in which words appear and in which they are even relevant.

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xnickb an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I strongly disagree on both points.

It's not "just English". There is a reason legal corpus is a separate thing. Just because a language uses the same grammar skeleton doesn't mean it is the same language.

If I were to train a model on all of written English excluding Legal Corpus and then ask it to interpret Legal corpus texts it'd be a disaster. The opposite is also true.

> The state does make this information available.

There was a 2nd part about it being comprehensible. That 2nd part goes hand in hand with my point above. More often than not legal texts are made to scare people away. Thankfully with LLMs we're seeing that changing rapidly. More and more people are able to educate themselves because the knowledge is no more gated behind a cryptic writing only select few can interpret.

And I am sure the next step is rewriting all of it into a human-friendly language.

I still see value in rigorous proceedings and there is value in a lawyer who can help you with strategic advice on legal. But that indeed is more of a plumbing work.

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zelphirkalt 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It sucks though, that the law is written in such a way, that most people are better off not reading it themselves, but getting an expert. It says something about our laws.

	▲	izacus 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's very deliberate to keep people like the one you're answering to in very profitable business.

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fwlr an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I appreciate the response, thank you

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gruez 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you're an attorney surely you'd know it's standard advice from lawyers to not go anywhere near those topics, lest that be construed as them promising extra rights that they didn't mean to grant?