that’s rape by coercion you fucking idiot. He used his power to get women to give him blowjobs. It’s in essence what Weinstein is being accused of. He even said the woman told him he “broke”. JFC
I guess you have a hard line between sexual assault and rape, Mr Lawyer. I personally think it is a thin line between the two. Making a woman feel like she can’t advance her career unless she performs sexual acts on someone she doesn’t want to do so is on a similar level as rape. But maybe that’s just me.
It amuses me how posters think dropping the “I am a lawyer” bomb will absolve all of their terrible opinions.
It's worse in real life outside of this board IYAM. There aren't many demographics more annoying than 25-30 year old lawyers. Luckily, all of the lawyers I know on this board IRL are pretty chill and not that annoying.
Half the fucking board are lawyers, I can't imagine anyone is actually impressed when you drop that nugget.
I thought his response was more aimed at you telling a lawyer that he really needed to read the law and stop being a keyboard warrior
Yeah. It was a direct response to his directive for me to “read the law.” I have read many laws in many leather bound books and I also think people should be more precise with their words. Maybe (probably, even) this guy has raped someone, but not based on what he said in that interview.
It’s more likely to be a negative. People don’t like lawyers for a reason. They’re/we’re mostly awful.
It’s not an opinion. It’s the law. It amuses me that a real life adult who likes to talk about his experiences playing army would accuse someone else of having unwarranted standing in society because of their profession.
From an evidentiary standpoint or a definitional one? It’s a fairly specific term of art that has drastic legal and social stigma consequences—essentially the second-worst crime you can possibly commit. I think equivocating non-actionable sexual misconduct with rape is like accusing a driver in an accident that resulted in death of murder without the relevant factors. That line of thinking also results in absurdities like 2 consensual partners who each have a beer “raping” each other under a radical definition of the term.
Oh god. When theriner69er and Why?Pokes might be the only people agreeing with me, then it’s time to see myself out.
I’m saying that it may not be rape by most statutes, but the difference ain’t worth fighting in this context.
In the clip he says (I’ll paraphrase) “I had her give me a blowjob if not I wouldn’t let her on stage and you know this was the gateway to Hollywood. Later on she called me to tell me I broke her.” How is that not rape/sexual assault? I know that there are legal definitions that go along with certain crime ( for example manslaughter and murder). But, when the end results are the same thing what does it matter what they are called on a message board. I am not a lawyer but I am sure if you asked someone what a man using his position of power to coerce someone to give him a blowjob is, most would say rape. I don’t think they’d look for the legal definition of that act.
Fair enough. I think an honest explanation that educates people of the consequences of their potential wrongdoing is a worthwhile discussion under most contexts. And like I said, I think a overly-colloquial definition of the term in light of its seriousness isn’t productive, but ultimately I don’t have any issue with that behavior being labeled as misconduct, scum bag, etc...
I agree that the common usage of “rape” has expanded drastically in recent years to encompass a wide variety of behavior that wouldn’t meet the traditional legal definition. And I agree that his self-admitted conduct is disgusting. My only issue is the term itself because it carries such serious consequences, and it results in logical absurdities that I don’t think any of us would agree to.
To be fair, so has the legal definition. MPC has updated its definition recently. Not to include this situation, but still, it’s changed with the times.
For sure. In general that’s a good thing, but there are certainly gaps and inconsistencies that states and the courts will need to address moving forward.
Hopefully “I’m a lawyer” becomes subject to widespread mockery once Kim Kardashian says it and it is true. No positives come to mind but plenty of negatives do when thinking about the overpopulation of lawyers there are in this country. I wish they would literally raise the bar.
Doesn't the choice part differentiate it? That person had a choice of blowing him and furthering their career, or not. Rape would be a lack of a choice. As an illustration, would you blow joey Diaz today in order to further your career? (no judgement if the answer is yes)
It’s a bit of a catch-22. Most attorneys would be ecstatic with a med-school like system because it would dramatically increase our pay by artificially limiting the supply. On the other hand, this would result in a marked reduction of attorney services to underserved and indigent communities. This problem is compounded by the reality that while non-profit support for healthcare is an easy sell, funding for attorney work for groups like minorities, criminal defendants, sex workers, etc... has traditionally been extremely difficult.
My guess is that the types of lawyers that are drawing the ire of members of this board are not the same people who are now serving underprivileged communities.
That makes sense. It would never get approved but a mandatory (even one you could buy your way out of by paying another attorney to do would suffice) community service type program that benefits underserved communities would be helpful at the very least. Practically, things have been like this here for too long and a lot of people that would be needed to institute the change would be themselves be lawyers. It is humorous how being a lawyer was an occupation that was looked down upon up until relatively recently.
Here is a neat factoid. Both The Army and the number of attorneys in the US are 1.3 million. Actually 1.35 million attorneys but I rounded down novelty purposes.
That’s not a bad idea. There’s been a big push nationwide to make the ABA pro-bono requirements mandatory (they’re non-binding aspirational goals in most jurisdictions), so I don’t think it’s that far-fetched an idea. If you could combine a strict volunteer requirement with an increase in pay by switching to a more limited licensing scheme a la medicine, you could probably make that happen. The limiting factor to date has been a reluctance to force struggling attorneys to sacrifice paid work in the name of public interest, but increasing comp across the board would alleviate that concern. You still have another issue though, in that most attorneys don’t have trial skills, and even among those that do, only a portion are suited to indigent defense. One of the most important aspects of your job is building trust w your client. Even beyond mere competency (and you need that too); you have to have the ability to relate, empathize, and communicate with those who you represent. That can be an impossible bridge to cross even for those who are interested in serving underprivileged groups, let alone those who specialize in other areas. An even bigger low-hanging fruit is increasing comp to public and appointed defenders, but that’s traditionally been a difficult political sell. The profession does what it can with the IOLTA fund scheme, but it needs additional support from the state legislatures, and no one wins elections by proposing giving more money to defendants.
Have you ever seen the documentary Murder on a Sunday Morning? The public defenders in it are great but people like them must be in very short supply.
I mean, this is an absolute bullshit take. Attorneys are very much free to enter into less lucrative positions. However, by and large, the only ones that are in those spots (those of the public defender ilk) are routinely bottom of the barrel, with some exceptions; ACLU, SPLC, various AAG, et al. There’s a plethora of attorneys. Those communities you mentioned are still entirely underrepresented. Imposing higher standards still gets most of these people their same baseline of zero representation. Attorneys can engage in pro bono work. In my anecdotal experience in this field, I’ve encountered very few actually doing it, and even then they’ve got a bang-up case and are collecting fees for their time on the backend.
Poor people should have access to more than just free representation. Civil Gideon, or something close, is important.
Mississippi has required pro bono hours every year but it is only 12 hours and not really checked, they just require you to sign a form that you have done them.
Cicero was both praised and mocked by The Senatorial class for his “performances” lawyering in The Forum. The fact that absolute monarchies were the form of government for almost all of the history since Caesar Augustus and the issue that you only really find out any personal feelings from monarchs or aristos that looked down at everyone that had actual jobs is the reason you never hear about much of their work.