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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MR. PANAMA (I am a PLAYER) who wrote (57290)	6/13/2000 5:58:00 PM
From: Smartypts	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 122087

OT For starters: U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders (no, I?m not making this up) tried to bar Parsons Technology from selling its legal software, priced at under $30, in Texas. Sanders? reasoning is the programs represent "the unauthorized practice of law." They also went after Nolo (Self-help Law) and US Attorneys stepped in to hit NJ with Torricelli in the lead and costs us many businesses. I can only post certain info for legal reasons here but twenty years ago the Texas state legislature, a body undoubtedly made up of many lawyers, established the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, an organization including six lawyers to be selected by the lawyers who make up the state?s supreme court. Such a setup could give incest a bad name. The UPLC?s job is to prevent competition that could damage the income of lawyers. I?m certain that?s not how it?s explained, however. Oh no, the committee is there to protect the public from unscrupulous, unprincipled, unqualified, incompetent scoundrels who squeeze the last penny from their clients. In truth, the committee is there to make sure the public can only hire licensed unscrupulous, unprincipled, unqualified, incompetent scoundrels who squeeze the last penny from their clients. So the UPLC took Parsons Technology to court. The judge decided the average consumer is stupid and can?t tell the difference between buying a CD-ROM or retaining a lawyer. Hint: When you?ve had to refinance your house, get a second job, borrow money from your brother-in-law, sell your kids, and spend your leisure time examining the fine points between a chapter 7 bankruptcy and a chapter 13, you can be fairly certain it?s a genuine attorney-at-law you?ve selected. Part of the problem is the Parsons? software may be too good. If it were just a bunch of fill-in-the-blank forms, perhaps the company would have gotten by. But as noted by Judge Sanders, the program "adapts the content of the form to the responses given by the user. In sum, Parsons has violated the unauthorized practice of law statute." That should teach the company not to tailor its products to its customers needs. In making his decision Judge Sanders wasn?t interested in protecting lawyers from competition. Not at all. Rather, his concern was protecting "the uninformed and unwary from overly simplistic legal advice." As usual, though, the objection didn?t come from consumers. Maybe that?s because they?re, as put so patronizingly by the judge, "uninformed and unwary." The objection came from the profession that could be hurt if people have a reasonably-priced alternative. The people controlling the current monopoly never welcome anything that could cut into the profits. Trusting people to make their own decisions is no longer in fashion. "Protecting" them, as only the heavy hand of government can, is. Especially when billable hours are involved. We elect too many lawyers to public office. They make the laws. They administer the laws. They interpret the laws. Appointed by John Kennedy to be a U.S. attorney, Barefoot Sanders went on to serve a stint in the Johnson Justice Department, rising to assistant attorney general. Jimmy Carter appointed him to the federal bench. . As we can see, not all federal judges appointed by Democrats spend all their time turning the bad guys loose. Some of them devote their efforts to protecting us from ourselves. We can be so uninformed and unwary. To sum it up new legislation was passed due to public outcry and Judge Barefoot LOST.