[Harmon]

Originally Posted by ApK

>>Please don't waste your time arguing with me on these things. I'm a lawyer<<

That's the most ridiculous thing I've seen posted in quite some time.

Speaking of no one in particular, but only in the interest of facilitating open forum discussion, I remind the general readership of the following points:

1. Any one can say they are anything. Lying isn't a crime. Don't believe something just because some anonymous strangers says so on the Internet.
2. There are dishonest, irresponsible and incompetent lawyers aplenty.

Yeah, I knew that there would be someone who would see my statement as arrogant, self-important and "ridiculous." But hey! I figured that would be proof that I actually AM a lawyer!

But anyone who takes a minute to search on my posts in Mobileread will conclude that either I'm a lawyer, or a damn good imitation of one.

Now, the full statement, not just the out of context quote you used, is as follows: (I've bolded the important qualification I made which you left out.)

Please don't waste your time arguing with me on these things. I'm a lawyer, I've read up on the law in these areas, and these are my conclusions. It would take another lawyer to make a point that would make me need to spend any more time on that, and i doubt you are a lawyer.

As it happens, I actually am a lawyer, and while it may seem ridiculous to you, there are some times when I don't propose to waste my time arguing with people about what the law really says when I know and they don't.

That's not to say that I might not be wrong in my conclusions. I'm willing to discuss - or argue - those conclusions with someone who has been educated in finding, reading, interpreting and understanding the law. I'm not an IP lawyer, though I've taken a few CLE courses in IP, and if there's an IP lawyer or para-professional who pops up & tells me I don't understand IP law, I will certainly defer to him or her. (And there are even some educated non-professionals on Mobileread who know enough to discuss the law to a certain point. In the course of educating myself on IP law, I've learned from them. But they don't go around labeling things as "stealing" when it is no such thing.)

If you want to argue with me about what the law should be, be my guest. I can tell you what the law

is.

I can tell you what I think the law can and cannot

do

. But my opinion on what the law

should be

in a normative sense, is no better or worse than anyone else's. (At least, if it's better it's not because I'm a lawyer. Maybe if it's worse...)

But if you try to tell me what the law actually is and I have researched the topic enough to conclude that you are wrong, there is hardly any chance at all that you can say anything that will make me change my conclusion, UNLESS you are another lawyer. Don't waste your time. Or mine.

It's no different than if a doctor says that a certain set of symptoms means you have a particular disease. The doctor will admit that this is not always true, but he will not usually care to waste his (unpaid) time discussing the exceptions with anyone but another medical professional.

Professional education actually means something, you know. And even though people can misrepresent themselves on the forum, it doesn't take too long to figure out who is bluffing about what they know, if you care to think about it for a minute.