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A Man Who is His Own Lawyer has a Fool for a Client
32 Plays1 month ago
In this episode Patrick and Andrew discuss the balance between do-it-yourself and hiring a professional, how to have the wisdom to know when to do each, and accurately assessing your own abilities.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
and the brave new world begins when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins as surely as water will wet us as surely as fire will burn the gods of the coffee book headings with terror and slaughter returned
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the Copybook Headings podcast. If you're a new listener, just joining us for the first time. This show is inspired by the poem by Richard Kipling called The Gods at the Copybook Headings. And every week we take an old saying, proverb, or maxim and we break it down to see what we can learn from it and see if there's still any ancient wisdom in these old proverbs that's relevant today. I am your host, Patrick Payne, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Andrew Stevens. Andrew, how you doing, man?
00:00:56
Speaker
I am doing great.
00:00:59
Speaker
um i ever we i feel like We just recorded last week, but it feels like it's been a while. I don't know. Maybe a lot's happened this week. Yeah, it does. It feels like it's been two weeks. and it's It does. Yeah. so I don't know. There's the changing of the seasons or something that feels like time is going longer. I don't know.
00:01:18
Speaker
Well, I was going to say like it just looks different talking to you here on camera. Just your, your, your office is so much darker, you know, and mine is too. Like there used to be a little bit of sunset going on in our our rooms and now it's completely nighttime. So for sure. Yeah, that could be it's part part of it. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um,
Proverb Introduction and Analysis
00:01:39
Speaker
yeah. Uh,
00:01:41
Speaker
But yeah, everything's been going good here. um We've got Proverb this week is one that I selected. It's a little bit of a different one. It's a little bit little bit odd, but the one that I went with this week is, let me make sure I'm saying it correctly, a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. So I told you about this one earlier. What did you what you think when I took through that one at you?
00:02:10
Speaker
ah yeah i thought were One, we we're taking low-hanging fruit if we ever have a lawyer on as a guest. Oh, yeah, dang. I'm sure there's a ton about lawyers, actually. i'm sure there Yeah, I'm sure there are. So we I don't think we'll i don't think we'll we'll miss out there. um But yeah, like I've heard this one before. ah And to me, it has ah has a modern flair to it. But it's it's fairly old from what I saw. like what What prompted you to pick this one?
00:02:44
Speaker
i was just looking through our list and i saw that one and i i'd never heard it before so um i thought it was kind of interesting i had just been reading a book which i we can talk about it in a minute here if it's actually kind of interesting book but it had a ah lot to do with Uh, criminal trials and that sort of thing is kind of a true crime book. And so, um, ah I guess it was just on the brain and I thought about it, but, uh, I guess, I don't know if you found much on the history of it, but I, it was attributed to Abraham Lincoln for awhile, I think, but I don't know. It might've been earlier than that. Yeah. The one I saw this, um, one website I'd like to to visit that seems pretty reliable.
00:03:22
Speaker
um phrasefinderphrases.org.uk this one was saying that it goes back um imprecise origin but it appears in the early 19th century as early as 1814 in a book by Henry Kett the flowers of wit or a choice collection of bon-mo observed the eminent lawyer i hesitate not to pronounce that every man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client So it's been around and it seems to predate Lincoln. Okay. um But I wouldn't be surprised if that, you know, these, they become popularized, right? Like someone, someone when famous in one area, one country will say it and then it shows up on all the newspapers and everything. So I can, I can see it becoming popular in the US around that time.
00:04:17
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I think you're probably right. ah yeah Old Abe, if ah you know being famous, and and he was an attorney, I think, wasn't he? Yeah. Memory serves. So him saying that was probably probably helped popularize it, but a but a bit of an older one. um this one Part of why it was interesting to me is um it kind
DIY vs Professional Help
00:04:40
Speaker
of plays on... i think it did it I mean, obviously, maybe a lawyer wrote it trying to get more clients. i I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. But at the same time, I feel like it can have a broader applicability, as many of these do, whereas
00:04:57
Speaker
ah you know i i I like DIY. I like people doing stuff themselves and learning new new skills and watching videos on YouTube to learn how to do cool stuff. I got nothing against that. um But I think this one speaks to a little bit of the but flip side to that. like there You should have the wisdom to know when you're out of your depth, when it's a specialized enough situation where you really do need a professional. And I think, obviously, yeah laws are probably a good example of that.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. um It does come up. It it's it is a universal, universalizable. I don't know. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, heck yeah. Universalized. It reminds, I was just talking to, talking to one of my buddies today and he was telling me about this kind of home improvement project they're doing. They're finishing off their basement. They're trying to, they're going to have a guest come live with them for a while and so they wanted to get her room and bathroom all ah ready for her down there. and And so some family was helping out with that kind of work. And I guess the plumbing inspector came and he was not happy.
00:06:08
Speaker
with with their you know with their work. And so it seems that you know certain tolerances were not observed distances between certain things that are required. um and And now he's got to figure out, well, he's probably gonna have to call a plumber now to to come and do it properly, right? And so the same principle there, where you've got you know a fool for a client of ah of a plumber here.
00:06:35
Speaker
where yep um a times Sometimes you can handle it by yourself, but sometimes you're gonna need to end up having to go to the professionals. For sure, yeah. I see that a lot with ah tradesmen. you know they They like to post things online, but like can you believe what this knucklehead did and then I have to go fix it? um Yeah. and In some cases, learning and doing it on your own, if it's your home, may not be the worst thing. I mean, worst case scenario with a plumbing accident, you might end up with a flood or a you know leak or or something.
00:07:03
Speaker
ah Worst case scenario in a criminal case, if you're defending yourselves, you could end up in prison forever. so That one seems like it's a pretty safe bet. um I was looking up some of the results of uh, self-representation in law and I, in criminal cases and stuff. And I didn't find exact numbers, but generally speaking, it seems like it's not a pretty scenario. Like the conviction rates are always higher. Uh, the sentences are harsher when, when defendants are self-representing. So it, uh, it seems like the data bears out the bears this one out.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, my when I told my wife this one, she reminded me of, what's it is it Avenetti, Avenatti, one of these guys recently, a fraud case, and I guess he represented himself, and he managed to get he managed to get a mistrial out of it. um I think he might have been an attorney himself, which which I've also seen, like I've seen in movies and TV shows,
00:08:09
Speaker
the joke made in particular about lawyers who decide to represent themselves, um like that aspect of it, right? Like you really need some outside advice and outside perspective, um even if it's something that you're familiar with or, you know, with lawyers, if maybe you're not, so you know, you're not a criminal law specialist and there you find yourself in in a criminal court and you're like, well, I can, I remember my yeah two law school classes, you know, um I'll be fine.
00:08:38
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I see it in that way too, kind of like, you know, a doctor wouldn't, uh, operate on himself, uh, outside of an extreme scenario. Right. So that yeah kind of idea.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like there's either there's only one of two types of people that represent themselves in a like a criminal case, and that's lawyers or just complete lunatics. It's one of the two. yeah it's ah You don't find usually a third category in my you know unprofessional experience. but yeah ah yeah Yeah, I was reading this book.
00:09:14
Speaker
It was actually a book about the the Charles Manson case and the killings. Okay. and He opted to you know represent himself because he was a lunatic. I guess it didn't stick because the judge, he was doing so many procedural things wrong that the judge was like, no more. You're just wasting everybody's time. This is not how this works, so I'm just going to give you a court appointed defense attorney. So ah maybe that's where I had it on my mind because I had just finished that book. It's a crazy book, by the way. It's called it's called Chaos by ah Tom O'Neill. And okay it's pretty wild book. But but yeah, we could we could digress on that book for a while. We wanted to take a tangent. Well, I've heard that's that's what a lot of judges will do. They'll assign a co-counsel kind of who's
00:10:07
Speaker
a real attorney to avoid any kind of like that mistrial shenanigans with, um, that they didn't have a, they can't say they didn't have an adequate defense. Right. Yeah. Um, because they had, they were getting official advice along the way, even if it was disregarded. Yeah. I wonder if that Avenatti guy, if that was his plan all along is to try to get a mistrial to delay things or something because, you know, yeah, I think, uh, I think he did have someone like appointed to help him.
00:10:38
Speaker
and And if I recall what my wife said is he, it was some ah evidentiary thing where the prosecution didn't didn't provide something and kind of they they caught him on it. And so they got off kind of on a technicality that he was not afforded all the the information that he was due.
Balancing DIY with Expertise
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:11:03
Speaker
um ah In terms of like the broader applicability of this, Um, I think there's probably several, you know, not just law. There are certain areas where you should probably, you know, trust a mechanic, but I feel like it it is a little bit of a but or trust. ah Did I say mechanic? You did say mechanic. Yeah. That's interesting. I think I have a good example. That's a good one too. and Trust a professional. I should say mechanic, not always, maybe sometimes. Um, uh, but, uh, there, there's a little bit of a balancing act there because, um,
00:11:37
Speaker
certain certain people will never do anything themselves and they always will farm it out to a quote unquote professional and oftentimes pay too much money for things that they really don't need to. um we Our car is in the mechanic right now is probably why I was thinking that. But ah you know auto mechanics I think is can go either way. like there's There's certain things that I don't want to do myself and I'm going to have a professional do it. And there's other things like are way easier than people think. you know ah Even people who don't know about cars, like they're always like scared. And I'm like, look, like some of the stuff is you just take the bolt out, and then you replace the part, and then you put the bolts back in the same way. like And that's literally it. So sometimes it's pretty simple.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, I, um, you know, we've, we're doing a little home improvement and we want to put in some, some vinyl flooring in, in like ah the living room as part of that, Bruce and things up, you know, ah well, I could do this. I, I've watched a few videos and I can't like, this looks like pretty easy, like easy enough, but.
00:12:43
Speaker
One, it's going to take me a little bit longer than and the pros. And you know it's our our most commonly used room. So it's kind of ah important to get done quickly. And also, I'm hoping you know with that one, we'll hire it out. I'll learn a few things. I'll we spy on the guys who are installing. and then ah And then I can do some other rooms that are lower, uh, lower stakes, you know, like this and the bedroom stuff like that. So, so taking it as a learning opportunity to to try and do myself later. But, um, but yeah, there's all kinds of those types of projects where you can do it. Like there's trade-offs of having the pros do it or, or trying it yourself. Yeah. I like your, your philosophy there. We had a, like our basement flooded a little while ago and, uh, we had to like tear out the carpet and,
00:13:33
Speaker
And, uh, we ended up replacing a lot of it ourselves. And then we, we, um, had to redry wall, but it was one of the kid bedrooms in the basement. And I'm like, I don't really care if the drywall looks that good and it doesn't like, I'm not a very good drywall or like with the spackle and the making it look smooth and everything. So it doesn't look that great, but like, you know, slide his bed up you behind it and like, yeah, we're fine. Whereas if it was like a more important room in the house, I might've paid someone who was good at that.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah. Now you've got practice out of it. So maybe the next dream you have to do, you wouldn't mind showing people, right? Yeah, that's true. We've been having some issues with our flooring where it's like, it's like those fake, it's like fake wood, whatever that stuff is. And it's like, I guess the sub floor underneath it wasn't perfectly level. So over time walking on it, it's like the seams are starting to split. Yeah. And then, so we're trying to get someone in to fix it, but it's been taken forever. What kind of flooring are you guys doing?
00:14:29
Speaker
we're just We're doing vinyl because it's ah the most spill proof and everything with with the kids. So it's ah not the fanciest looking, but but were we're excited about it. nice Carpet's getting old and getting tired. so Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah. um One thing I was curious to get your thoughts on. um What do you think kind of possesses people to do these sorts of things? Like sometimes it seems like it's pretty clearly a bad idea and like everyone around can kind of see it like, oh, you shouldn't be doing this. But some people just have that, you know, they really feel like they can do it. Like, where do you think that comes from? Just overconfidence or something? Or I was just curious. Yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
I think it's got to come from a a few places, at least that I've seen one is like out of extreme thriftiness. Oh, like you can't um imagine paying someone to do something that you could possibly do yourself. And I think that, you know, older generations, I think of like my grandpa, my, my grandfather's generation that, you know, great depression generation, they're going to do that kind of stuff. Cause you know, it's the same people who don't ever throw out things and have, um,
00:15:48
Speaker
you know they save their peanut butter jars to to keep screws in. right like yeah that that was my That was my grandpa. He built his own house and so he's going to wants to do everything else too. um So I think that's one one type and i don't and I think that's ah one of them maybe the maybe even more benign types. um But then you've got like the people who do it like for ego and and pride that they they know better than the professionals could possibly know. and and I think they're the ones who get in the most trouble, but those are the two like two of the main types that come to mind for me. but I hadn't thought about the the frugal one, but you're 100% right. and I think sometimes there might even be like a combination of both where it's like the they they feel like they they know that they know enough to think that that person's ripping them off or something because yeah they're like, you know why would I pay you you so you so much money when you're doing the same thing I can do? and So it's like, yes, but it's yeah one of those two, I think is great. And sometimes maybe a mix of of both of it. So I've I've only had like one real like law case that I was involved in. I actually sued an employer. It was a previous employer that didn't pay me money that was owed to me. I've been in sales most of my career. So it was like a commission type of thing. And I just made some sales and they didn't pay me on it. So I had to contact an attorney.
00:17:08
Speaker
um And I mean, they take a percentage of it. Like the money you get, I think it was like 25% or something they get. And so um it's it's like I possibly could have, you know you could do small claims court or something. i don't I don't know what the limit is on that. Maybe it would have been too much. But um but yeah, um I might've been able to do something by myself and tried to save the save the money. But what had ended up happening was in the course of going through all this stuff,
00:17:35
Speaker
you know, looking through the records and and the communication I'd had with this company and all this stuff. And he was finding other stuff. He's like, oh, they should have paid you on that. Oh, did you think about this? And so I ended up, even after the 25% fee, I ended up making more than I would have if it had just paid me to begin with. So um having a professional is sometimes the right choice. At least NASA clearance was. Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
Also as an advice, make sure you pay your people, pay your contractors. yes your replace um this ah This reminds me, I have to fact check this with my dad, um but there's there's family lore here that my aunt sued her her brother on the People's Court TV show, like back in trail like the 80s or whatever.
00:18:31
Speaker
They were on the show. um Yeah, yeah. On the Wapner people's group. So I've never seen this episode. I hear this happened. I don't know anything more about it. So maybe I'll have to try and track it down. But like he like the the brother and like his friend, roommate, their dog killed her ducks.
00:18:53
Speaker
like she had some pet ducks and so they she sued for the for a restitution of her livestock so okay she won so okay so so there's a there's a good pro se show right there everyone i mean ah that's the whole point of that show right is to get people to represent themselves and be kind of stupid in in how they interact with the judge and stuff. right That's the entertainment factor is that they're not professionals. there there And they say stupid things and fall into traps and things like that. so yeah and That's why those judge that's yeah courtroom shows are so popular.
Legal and Entertainment Anecdotes
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah. Judge Judy then replaced Wapner, right? Or I don't know if it was a different, no, it was probably a different show. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. As the popular one. And she's, she's brutal. I mean, people will say such as like, that has nothing to do with anything. That's irrelevant. Yeah. You know, it's like, and we all knew that, you know, because the dude's a nitty. You're like, that has nothing to do with anything, but she just like shuts them down. I think, uh, I think my sister-in-law was on that show. Um, but okay. So your family members that were on it with the ducks, what was their relationship? They were brother and sister.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i think that's I think that's who it was. Yeah. And then I think the the my I guess my uncle, I think he might've had like a friend who was also like a co-defendant. um I think he might've owned the dog or something like that, but they were living living with her and and the dog killed the ducks. that's That's what I remember from being told this years ago. So I'm going to track this down and find the real episode here.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah. um Generally, probably best advice if you can avoid being going to court is you I think usually the best advice, but if you have to, um especially if it's a criminal case, like obviously the the this advice is True in the literal sense that having professional representation in that case is the right thing to do. But but yeah, it's it's good advice. Generally speaking, I think to to ask yourself, am I being arrogant? Am I being cheap? Do I really just need to suck up my pride and let a professional handle this issue? ah One area that's kind of a gray area for me is tax stuff like because you could file your taxes if you have a real simple thing, but sometimes
00:21:15
Speaker
Some people don't have a real simple or if you own your own business or something like that. I don't know. What do you think about that? Yeah, I've i've heard that too. I have pretty simple taxes, but i but I hear like once you start, if you start like you're kind of doing your own business type thing, um then that hiring in a good accountant pays for itself and then some. So yeah, i've my but that's one that's one area where like my example of my dad, he was ah he's always been a very much do-it-yourselfer point of pride on his taxes.
00:21:51
Speaker
He'll run it through like TurboTax just to compare against his own like his own math that he did it in the forms and then he does his own forms himself. So he'll do like the free version just to double check his work and then he'll submit it for free nice just through the regular government site. So he's he's always been very particular and proud of his abilities to to handle his own taxes. So that's the example I was i was given.
00:22:21
Speaker
Okay. um i got to talk I got to do a little more digression on this book that I was written about because like its oh yeah it's going to kill me if I don't tell you about it. is like Now that I'm thinking about it, this is precisely where I came up with this idea because i've been it was a lot of legalism in that book.
Conspiracy Theories
00:22:37
Speaker
But it was wild because like it was talking about like some of the connections with this this Manson, I guess Charles Manson, the the crazy murderer, like cult leader from the 60s for those of you who don't know. um I guess he was like way more plugged into Hollywood and everything than anybody thought. like He used to party with the Beach Boys all the time and yeah he was everybody disavowed him afterwards, but like he was... What's that?
00:23:03
Speaker
Is it Dennis Wilson that he was tight with from the Beach Boys? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. yeah Have you heard his music? Have you heard any of his songs? No, I haven't. Have you? Yeah. I mean, they're very 60s. They're very 60s, very, very hippie kind of songs. Yeah, he kept trying to get a record deal, apparently. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:22
Speaker
if only someone had given him in him a record deal would have been things turn out better If only Hitler hadn't been kicked out of art school. Yeah, exactly. That same the same scenario there, right? Kind of one of those things. Yeah. No, this guy in this book, it was talking to some about like the CIA connections, too, because it was... It wasn't like a super strong like smoking gun there anything that he could find but it was just kind of coincidental that this guy who's like a super mastermind at brainwashing and and was like, I've had all these harem of women that would run around and just kill form at the drop of a hat.
00:23:59
Speaker
lived in like the exact same place and had knew a bunch of the same people in this exact same hate Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco for a while. He was living as as like some of the MK Ultra guys from from CIA that were working on mind control and like brainwashing. So it's like the world's foremost experts in brainwashing were like down the street from from Charles Manson and then he ends up like being really good at brainwashing. So it's like, I don't know, there's just all sorts of weird connections, but it was- Yeah, and has't the Unabomber had that kind of stuff too, Ted Kaczynski, right? where he was experimented on when he was at Harvard as a student through some of these like proto MK Ultra programs and things. That was, I don't know if that one's been confirmed, but that one's been rumored for sure. um That he he was maybe even assessed, but he definitely knew a bunch of those people and was there at the same time. And then he, hit yeah, it's crazy. Wow. Going on down our conspiracy theory rabbit hole here a little bit, but but it changes it the crazy,
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, but the crazy thing about that, a lot of that is some of it's not like theory at all. Some of it's just like declassified fact for sure. Like, it's like, she's like, Oh, okay. Well, so I guess that happened. But, um but yeah. So if you find yourself in a situation where The CIA has done mind control experiments on you. You should probably get yourself a good lawyer and not try to represent yourself as Charlie did. Yes.
Proverb's Modern Relevance
00:25:27
Speaker
um Now, let's ah i't I haven't thought about this too much from the other perspective. Is this ah is this a proverb that is valued ah broadly today? Is this something that people agree with? Or is this ah the the gods of the marketplace? is this Do people have a different perspective in society? I don't know that I feel like they do, but maybe there's some examples in areas where people are encouraged to do things themselves that they shouldn't.
00:26:00
Speaker
um i think from a No, I think society pretty much follows this one, especially in the literal sense. I don't know of anyone who's like, yeah, it's a great idea to represent yourself in court. yeah That's pretty much generally viewed as a bad idea. um In terms of ah the broader view of it, I think it's probably the opposite. People tend to get nervous when you tell people that you're gonna do something yourself and they're like, well,
00:26:27
Speaker
I feel like society is a little bit more, well you got ah we've talked a little bit about like kind of the credentialism. Does this person have the power proper paperwork and all this nonsense, which in many cases you really just don't need. um YouTube really does have a ton of really good information by people who know what they're talking about, and you can just follow step by step and do a lot of stuff yourself. so um Yeah, I would say probably not. What do you think? Yeah, I i agree with that. I think people are more encouraged.
00:26:54
Speaker
to be overly cautious and, and call on the professionals, you know, ah for sure. Yeah, yeah, thing I was thinking I had a clogged pipe a while back from in my laundry room. And I was thinking all that the things I try all the videos, I watched all the different things I tried, you know,
00:27:13
Speaker
eventually landing with the ah the plumbers acid. And, and that's what works. And that was like the sketchiest thing. I'm glad. to Yeah, I'm glad no one was there to see me do it. But I got the clock out.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah, is that that stuff that kind of thing is that good or what? Well, it was just ah it was a bit more reactive than I was expecting. There was a oh there's like some some buildup on the you know this the drain pipe for the for the washing machine. So there's some buildup on the sides of the pipe that reacted with the acid. So it kind of fizzed on me and had to bust out the baking soda and neutralize. Question. It was just. Question for you. Is that why you guys need new floors now? No, no, no, no, no. That's all.
00:28:06
Speaker
You didn't burn a hole in the kitchen. This was downstairs. This was the basement. Okay. All right. So far so good. I was just picturing like that some acidic like volcano eating away your vinyl flooring and now you need new ones. Yep. Yeah, exactly.
00:28:24
Speaker
Well, cool. come Pardon me. Well, yeah, I think this one's a pretty good advice. Generally, it's ah another one. Many of these come down to kind of self-awareness and ah making sure that you're you're not being overly arrogant about things, not overly frugal, like you mentioned, just being in a situation where you can um You can just accurately judge your own your own abilities and your own opinion your own ah your capabilities and your skills and seeing if it might be better to to get some help. ah you i mean I wonder if this is kind of the same comes down to the same phenomenon as people not willing to ask for help, you know even from their neighbors or anything. yeah
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think it's it's related. um And as a side note, like coming back to that plumbing problem, I probably spent more on some new tools that I attempted ah to get this, with you like a a snake and some other some other plumbing tools and stuff.
00:29:32
Speaker
calling a plumber right away probably would have been a little bit cheaper. But I do think I learned some valuable things and now I've got some materials. So next time I got it for sure. So there is yeah there's a bit of an investment in yourself in some of these. But yes, be judicious, be know your limits and know when you need to call in the professionals.
00:29:54
Speaker
Well said, all right, we'll leave it at that. Well, hey, thanks so much for listening, everybody. We will join you guys, see you guys all next week. Thanks for joining us, and we will catch you next time. Thanks, it Andrew. All right, we'll see you. There are only four things certain since social progress began,
00:30:24
Speaker
and that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins, when all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sin, as surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn, the gods of the copy will hit us, with terror and slaughter.