On the Legal System
From Blind Spots: A Riches to Rags Story — Chapter XII
“From the outside, I'd assumed the legal process works as follows. There is a big red button that says ‘LAW,’ and when two parties get into a disagreement, the button gets pushed and the winner is decided instantly like some sort of game show.
This could not be further from the truth. Law is incredibly abstract, far more creative and far messier than I ever imagined.
In a criminal case, there are unknowns every step of the way, and you're making high-stakes decisions completely blind. There are no concrete answers. Ten different attorneys will give you ten different responses. When you finally retain one, you learn that they don't call the shots—you do. They can advise you on the best course of action, they can serve as intermediary in your communications with the government, but they haven't been sitting in your seat for the past few years. They're coming in completely blind. The course of action they advise is often short-term optimal, and despite their best intentions, they aren't the ones who will have to face the lifelong repercussions of your decisions. This means weighing advice from counsel against the fact that every decision you make will affect your relationships with friends and family forever.
Part of what makes the whole process such a mind-melter is that in a complex legal case, you're basically trying to balance multiple equations with multiple variables over multiple timeframes. Money, relationships, reputation, time, there are short and long-term gives and takes to all of these, and no decision is ever made in a vacuum. There are always ripple effects up and down the chain that you didn't see coming, and in between dodging pitfalls and landmines you get used to the fact that as I said earlier, you have entered a system driven almost entirely by politics and incentives.
It's one big Bayesian clusterfuck where by the time you finally can see the finish line, you realize that all the critical probability weightings and soul-crushing work you've done can be boiled down to, Welp, I really hope the judge gets a good night's sleep and has a yummy, nutritious breakfast that morning.”
Ceterum censeo,
GB
