[trollbridge]

I think the lawyers in a straw-man imaginary world where they say a university can't e-mail any FERPA-covered data to a student (which includes such basic things as what times a student's classes are) don't contribute anything to society. But that's because they're just a figment of one person's imagination.

Actual, real lawyers who work for or at real universities often do contribute quite a bit of valuable work. I enjoyed the one I worked with and think she did a great job of putting the brakes on over-regulating or using legal compliance as an excuse for just not doing work.

[ndriscoll]

That's great to hear. As I agreed elsewhere in the thread, their true purpose is exactly to shield other workers from this sort of nonsense FUD and make-work.

Of course I presume it's also not a strawman because it's not in any way some unique thing to lawyers.

[trollbridge]

The general counsel at my last university job actually tended to cut through the red tape and excuses of “can’t do this due to legal”.

Lots of fun if a department had been stonewalling for “legal reasons” and she was summoned to a meeting.

[wkearney99]

This, way too many people think they know the law and build up a wall of thinking based on their erroneous understanding of it. They're often afraid to incur the perceived expense of consulting an actual expert.

The same kind of broken thinking exists across MANY other aspects of life. Turn up the radio in your car to avoid hearing the problem that would be 'easy' to fix now and instead ignore it until it turns into a considerably more expensive repair.

I find it's often the same people that make these kinds of misguided decisions that crow the loudest about "kill all the lawyers". Perhaps because of their fear of being called out for their ignorance.