#personally i try to avoid pettyness because it usually backfires

[hellenhighwater]

hey so how come lawyers like so much PAPER?

sincerely, the person in the copy center who has to print all these goddamn binders

Man, it is the worst. I grew up file clerking for my dad and it was so terrible that I decided I would never be a lawyer. SO much paperwork. Ugh. Horrible.

But also, if you're in trial, you want all of the information in the entire case at your fingertips, and you want to know exactly where every piece of info is--which means that you have it hard copy, because a laptop can glitch or lag or crash but paper abides.

Also, in a lot of circumstances, you need a physical item in order to admit something as evidence, because the court physically marks it with a sticker label. So you print photos, documents...even for video files, you have it on a disc or USB that the court can put its little evidence sticker on. And then, depending on the type of trial, all that evidence may go with a jury into a jury room to look over, and you don't really want to give them a wholeass laptop, because that's just asking for improper non-evidence information to be considered.

And if you're feeling like a jackass when complying with discovery demands, you can give the requested information on physical paper and that's fulfilling the demand (unless it was specifically for digital format) but it's not searchable in the way that a PDF would be--you can't control+F for the info you want, you have to read through reams of paper. Which you should do, for thoroughness, but...it's time consuming. So you can play petty little games and give people hardcopy to make their lives marginally more difficult.

Ultimately though, lawyers just really love deforestation. Fuck them trees.

#im joking lawyers love trees #tree law is great #discovery demands can request digital files #but if they dont then sometimes people play stupid games #personally i try to avoid pettyness because it usually backfires #but its a thing that happens #none of this is absolutes btw the law is different everywhere #we are a paperless office but we print entire casefiles for trial