[mvpel]

It's just that laymen think the law is a lot more straightforward and simple than it is.

The law may not be simple, but justice is.

Have you seen those "Even kids know..." commercials from Ally Bank?

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You don't need to be a lawyer to understand fairness and decency, regardless of how many layers of legal slop has been piled over it.

Perhaps that's one of the key reasons we have juries - to help keep the lawyers from losing sight of the justice forest behind all those legal trees.

[AnAmericanMother]

I wish justice were simple.

Justice is simple only until some sharp cookie decides he can manipulate people.

And there will always be sharp cookies with a deficiency in their sense of fair play. Just as there will always be tough guys who think they can muscle the weak out of something. Not all of them are lawyers -- some of them just hire lawyers.

It's better to circumscribe them with statutes and case law than it is to kill them out of hand. That can get messy.