YSaC, Vol. CXLVII
2008 December 12
Legal help to change a law.
I need some help with changing a law. If any lawyers out there are interested please write to me. Only serious inquiries please.
I know that all the lawyers I know (well, all three of them) would fall all over themselves to contact a random person* on the internet who wants to change an unspecified law.
I’d like to change the law that says that I can’t reach through the internet and slap this person silly. Any lawyers interested in helping me?
Oooh, you know who this guy needs? He needs the Laywer Not A Paralegal.
*The fact that there is a “Random Person” who comments regularly on the site and who claims to be a lawyer pleases me greatly. Maybe Random Person can be the lawyer (or laywer) for this random person.
Has this person never seen Schoolhouse Rock?
“I’m just a bill, just an ordinary bill…….”
Then again, what do I know? I learned the legal process of passing a law by watching “Legally Blonde 2”.
Sadly, I have a job that makes it a conflict of interest for me to act as a lawyer for any individual. Sadly for him, I mean — I can’t say I’m all that sad myself.
I guess I could be his laywer. I’m pretty sure there was nothing about laywers in Professional Responsibility.
If I had no sense of ethics at all, I’d say that all this guy really needs is a big bank account and a contact in the appropriate legislature. Isn’t that the American way to get laws changed? He might need a lawyer after that, though.
Random Person,
My Con Law courses taught me that there’s another way to get laws changed: break them, get arrested, and hope the Supreme Court declares them unconstitutional.
I wonder if this guy is looking for someone to break a law with him…
I like imagining that this guy went out and broke the law, like he did a hit-and-run or stole an old lady’s purse, and instead of thinking to hire a lawyer to provide him with a good defense his mind jumped straight to “I need a lawyer to make what I did not illegal anymore.”
@ katie kawaii
funny, but I think (and anyone that knows better, correct me if I’m wrong) that things like these do not apply retroactively…so if it was a crime at the time you committed the action, you’re still gonna pay for it
Alx:
Normally that’s correct, unless you have the right connections (and of course are part of the right demographic group, i.e., white, male, upper-middle class, family-man, yada yada yada). Then you can not only get the legislature to change the law to create a loophole for you, you can also get them to declare that it applies retroactively AND get the governor to sign the bill so that the person who was already convicted of murder by a jury gets out of prison! Really, Arizona? Really???
(Okay, so it wasn’t de-criminalizing something, but still…it let him get away with murder)
That’s generally true, but cf. my comment above. If the law you broke is declared unconstitutional, you can’t be punished for breaking it, at least after a court declares it unconstitutional. Just hope you aren’t stuck in prison while you’re waiting for the law to be struck down.