Posted on 07/01/2013 9:27:50 AM PDT by ColdOne
You must be a lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court.
Thought that already was the case? It wasn't until Monday, when the Supreme Court revised its 80-page rule book for the first time since 2010.
The update covers items such as filing deadlines but also adds Rule 28.8, which requires anyone arguing before the court to be a lawyer. The high court says the new rule simply codifies a "long-standing practice of the court."
A nonlawyer hasn't argued before the justices in more than three decades, though not for a lack of trying. A magazine publisher, entrepreneur and paralegal-in-training asked but were turned down, the paralegal-in-training the past year.
New York resident Samuel H. Sloan, now 68, was the last nonlawyer to do it when he represented himself in 1978 in a lawsuit involving stock trading. Sloan says he interviewed several lawyers who volunteered to represent him for free, just for the prestige of appearing before the court, but he decided to handle the job himself.
"It wasn't on an ego thing or anything like that," he said recently. "I wanted to win the case. I was convinced I couldn't win the case in any other way but to argue my own case.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Sad, the constitution doesn’t say you have to be a lawyer/judge to be a justice, kind of wished they would enforce that...
The legal profession would be much more honorable if lawyers were banned from it.
Lawyer are far above “ordinary” people who demand
accountability and Oaths meaning something.
The words mean nothing to lawyers or SCOTUS.
When SCOTUS is not pi$$ing on the grave on John Jay
by ignoring his explicit advice, and not overturning
Congress or the Constitution, they are ALWAYS available
to overturn the popular vote, too, like last week.
“The legal profession would be much more honorable if lawyers were banned from it.”
Indeed.
And perhaps the system might have a better chance of dispensing justice.
Ha ... that would make a GREAT tag line!!
Resolute Conservative ~:” Sad, the constitution doesn’t say you have to be a lawyer/judge to be a justice, kind of wished they would enforce that... “
Yeah , by eliminating the common man , they eliminate any pretense of “ Common Sense” !
Now , decisions are all based on “ legal precendent”
and the last “precedent” was a judicial overreach which eliminated “states rights “ .(California Prop 8 )
So , now that we have the SCOTUS “ legal precendent” that Federal laws control and over rule “states rights” .
I thought you had the to represent yourself?
This country now loves blackmailers. Nowadays lawyers get to blackmail anyone, and especially their client. This priviledge stuff with lawyers defending you no matter your guilt is horsesh!t.
If you need to be a lawyer to know the law, then the defect is in the law, not in the citizenry.
Perhaps every law should pass through a citizen body - something like a jury.
The laws proponents and opponents would each submit test cases, and the citizen board would decide the outcome of the cases presented based on the law.
If the citizens on the board don’t reach 100% consensus on what the outcome of the test cases would be under the new law, then the legislature would have to rewrite it.
Years after his retirement, my step dad with a high school degree and no schooling in law, became the County Judge.
Law needs to be returned to the people.
Worst people I’ve ever met in my life have been lawyers, and I’m dubious about their self-regulation through the bar system
“...the constitution doesn’t say you have to be a lawyer/judge to be a justice...”
There was a time when you could study to be a lawyer, or “read law”, and then practice under the guidance of another lawyer. A form of apprenticeship. I believe this is how Lincoln studied.
Then came the ABA. Maintaining high rates through scarcity, bars to entry through obscenely high costs of education at only approved schools, and privilege granted only to other members of the guild.
Judges should be banned from it as well.
All of them.
Excellent point. Your statement should be set in stone on the front steps of the Capitol building.
To all of you people using this opportunity to attack lawyers and argue that this abridges one’s chance at ‘justice’, let me just say that having an experienced lawyer argue before the Supreme Court is the best opportunity to obtain a chance at ‘justice.’
Oral argument is an opportunity to argue the finer points of facts, policy, and legal precedent that the great majority of lay people will not be able to do successfully. Appellate attorneys are specialists in this area. Many pro se parties have difficulty grasping even the basic tenets of law and focusing on the important issues even at the small claims court level, much less on the federal level.
An entire branch of government has now become the exclusive jurisdiction of a single profession. That’s really frightening, when you consider how over-reaching that branch has become in the past few decades. It’s also frightening when you consider how intellectually limited a legal education is. When a law is being drafted, thousands of people, from all walks of life, get involved in some way. That’s real “diversity”. Now, a single profession, operating from a sometimes bizarre paradigm, trumps the experts of all other professions, and “the People”.
It’s much the same in Canada; but, it wasn’t always so. Before we got our “written” Constitution, with it’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the principle that “Parliament is Supreme” was followed, as it still is in Britain. The Supreme Court of Canada could not overturn (most) laws passed directly by Parliament. The exceptions were federal laws that intruded on Provincial powers, or vice-versa.
We do have the so-called “notwithstanding” clause in our Constitution. It essentially says: notwithstanding whatever the Courts have to say about this matter, this law will stand. The “notwithstanding” clause was put in, to assure defenders of Parliamentary supremacy that the Courts wouldn’t be usurping the top spot (like the SCOTUS had often done). Unfortunately (IMHO) the “notwithstanding” clause has only been used once (by Quebec, to protect some of their anti-English language laws), although it has been invoked about a dozen times. Politicians are afraid to pull the trigger, lest they be accused of supporting “unconstitutional” laws. At least Parliament still has that trump card in reserve; and that seems to be keeping the SCOC from going completely power mad.
If we follow Shakespeare’s advice their wont be anyone to argue at the SC.
Does this mean that even the great Clinton cannot address the SC — because he has been disbarred?
How about the functionally disbarred, who have purportedly “voluntarily” surrendered their law licenses?
The people’s highest court...but only for labor union members known as lawyers.
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