Only Lawyers Now Can Argue Before Supreme Court

breitbart.com ^ | 7/1/13 | ap

[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.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

” with it’s Charter....” —> “with its Charter....”

Arrgah!

[Red Badger]

Well, obviously they don’t want a perfect world...............

[Buckeye McFrog]

translation: Begone, Peasant Peons. We have not the time of day for ye.

[null and void]

Scum is not allowed to talk to nobility.

[headstamp 2]

Yet another branch of government working to insulate itself from the rabble and great unwashed.

[An.American.Expatriate]

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.’

I'm glad you put the word justice in quotes - because there is no longer any 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.

Then as an earlier poster already commented, the law itself is flawed! The Constitution, as written, including the BoR and (most) of the Amendments is very clear and concise in meaning - only lawyers think it needs to be interpreted (to death) and that we common folk can not possibly understand it. And now, after decades of "precedent" - we can not even refer to the Constitution itself as a basis for our laws! Instead we must wade through page upon page of legal "opinion" - most of which is CLEARLY at odds with what was originally written.

As a result, we get laws governing aspects of our lives that congress / the government was never given the power to regulate, and a citizenry which is unable to prevent because we can not prove "harm".

This "rule change" is a direct infringement of our right to petition and seek redress - there is no stipulation in the Constitution that requires a government approved lawyer to represent us before the government and no stipulation granting the power to make such a stipulation!

[Our man in washington]

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Supreme Court is part of the government. I question the Constitutionality of this decision.

[Fast Moving Angel]

Concur about the self-regulation - seems that only the most egregious of violations get more than a hand-slap (explains a lot about Congress, most of whom are lawyers). However, there are good and bad examples in most occupations - I know several lawyers who, if you met them on the street or at a party, you wouldn’t think they were lawyers :-)

[a fool in paradise]

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 whole think smacks of the racist "literacy tests" that Democrats used to give black voters in the South.

Even the rotten to the core Democrats acknowledge they can't actually be bothered to read their thousand page bills (it'd take you two days and a couple of lawyers to make it through the thing!").

[Wurlitzer]

So WE usually don’t have standing in cases which affect ALL Americans and now only a certain class of Americans can air their grievances against this corrupt government to the USiC (United States Inferior Court).

Bad enough MOST of their decisions are 100% political as proven by the endless stream of 5-4 decisions and the number of times they have slapped US Citizens in the face by telling them they do not have standing but now only special people can stand in front of these 9 traitors.

How many more branches of government must turn on us, how many more agencies must actively work against us before we overturn this government?

While there still is a thread of the 2nd Amendment remaining, a Thomas Jefferson moment would seem to be the only solution as most of these power crazed filth are NOT elected.

[AuH2ORepublican]

“If we follow Shakespeare’s advice their wont be anyone to argue at the SC.”

---

Shakespeare didn’t say to “kill all the lawyers.” One of his characters said that. A villain.

[Kozak]

He wrote it.

[Pox]

A nonlawyer hasn't argued before the justices in more than three decades, though not for a lack of trying.

That claim is false. I worked for a gentleman who was not a lawyer who argued a case in the Supreme Court less than 10 years ago.

[chrisser]

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.’

That would be a wonderful way to describe justice if those laws only applied to judges and lawyers.

But they apply to all of us, and we're all supposedly bound to follow them. If they're so incomprehensible that we can't know what they mean, then one would have to argue that the laws are written precisely so we can't follow them. That's not justice by any reasonable definition.

"There's no way to rule innocent men" seems to fit.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Yeah, Shakespeare wrote a play in which a character said that, but he didn’t “advise” that we “kill all the lawyers.” In fact, Shakespeare had a villain say that because Shakespeare was trying to show the imporyance of lawyers, and the rule of law generally, in protecting citizens from givernment tyranny.

[Kozak]

Nope.

http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html

[Fast Moving Angel]

If they're so incomprehensible that we can't know what they mean, then one would have to argue that the laws are written precisely so we can't follow them.

Oh, you've read the tax code! :-)

[OneWingedShark]

Perhaps every law should pass through a citizen body - something like a jury.

Every law should -- this is in the 6th Amendment (and 7th for civil cases > $20).

[AuH2ORepublican]

I could send you a dozen articles, by more renowned authorities than your Mr. Finkel, that state that Dick the Butcher’s line in King Henry VI was, essentially, a tribute to the importance of lawyers by Shakespeare. Was Shakespeare also trying to get laughs? Of course, but that doesn’t mean that he meant to present Dick the Butcher as a likeable character, much less one through which Shakespeare’s personal opinions were expressed.

In any event, you know full well that if we “kill[ed] all the lawyers” we would not be following the Bard’s “advice.”

[OneWingedShark]

The Supreme Court is part of the government. I question the Constitutionality of this decision.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Black-Robed God-Kings, *spit*, will correctly point out that (a) they are not Congress, and (b) it is a rule, not a law… this completely ignoring that they have, via the magic of incorporation [14th Amendment], determined that the 1^ST does bind state legislators (and cities) despite specifically naming Congress.