S Folinsky

Just got off the phone with a client of the office of where I am "of counsel." No need to go into details but I got question along the lines of "WTF! How can they do that?!"

I recall being involved in litigation some years back and asking MY attorney "How can they do that?!" I just loved her calm answer: "They are assholes." That calmed me down quite a bit and I've used that from time to time.

E2Brutus

I have no issue with rules and regulations - even if there are masses of them. What I don't like is the the fact that when the rules and regulations are open to interpretation and the discretion of individuals who are indeed as you describe them!

Pulaski

I believe that the usual rule of thumb is that "the number of possible interpretations is directly proportional to the number of lawyers you ask for an interpretation."

sir_eccles

They say jump, you say how high.

henryh

Nope, it's affine. N+1.

MarylandNed

And often those interpretations become rules/regs in and of themselves. For example, policies (which are just interpretations) are often drawn up regarding how rules/regs will be implemented. Often these policies are treated as though they were carved in tablets of stone simply because they are written down somewhere and everyone has lost sight of the fact that the policies simply have no foundation in law. In fact, policies sometimes run counter to the law - but try getting some jobsworth to recognize that.

Steve_

A good example being the DACA/DAPA thing Obama is trying to get the courts to agree with.

That is essentially what the judge said, it's a policy that runs counter to the legislation which says DHS "shall remove" persons unlawfully present. Their lawyers are trying to say it is their "discretion" to not remove people, well clearly no discretion is being exercised when they reckon it will apply to 4 million people.

I've actually used that argument in court/consultations myself, a policy being applied in such an inflexible manner that no discretion is being exercised, and the policy is thus the bureaucrat making up a law which has no foundation. The question is whether you've got the staying power to get them to see sense.

Here's a tip - if it's a US federal law that is in question, see if you can get the Dept. of Justice Office of Legislative Council to render an opinion on it. Took me years to figure that one out. Strangely I thought ombudsmen and inspector generals would actually do their jobs, haha.