Is the legal system too complicated in this country?

Question

seems like there's this type of court, that court, a lawyer for this, that, lower court, higher court.....can someone explain it in a nutshell.......

Answer 1

it's complex yes, but not impossible to understand.

first, the basic court system in the U.S. is 1) the trial level court. this is where you enter the legal system and where the initial decision is made: guilty/not guilty (criminal) or liable/not liable (civil). 2) appellate court. the loser in the trial court can appeal to the appellate court to try to get the decision of the trial court reversed. 3) supreme court. the loser in the appellate court can petition the supreme court to attempt to get the supreme court to hear the case and decide it. the supreme court has the option to hear the case or decline to hear it. if it hears the case, then it can reverse or affirm the lower courts' decisions.

second, this basic system is duplicated at both the federal and the state level. federal courts can only hear a limited number of cases, state courts can hear all cases. sometimes suit must be brought in federal court, sometimes it must be brought in state court, and sometimes the plaintiff gets to pick.

note, however, that not all states follow the trial/appellate/supreme court scheme. this is the pattern at the federal level and in most states, but there are complexities - some states don't have an intermediate appellate court, for example. states may also add specialized courts (probate courts - wills, guardianship; small claims - issues of $5k or less; etc.) if they want. these specialized courts can either take the place of, or provide a first step before, the trial court.

there are, of course, even more complexities beyond this (petitions for rehearing, en banc decisions, federal three-judge panels) but you asked for the nutshell, not the dissertation. :)

Answer 2

There are trial courts where the facts are determined and a judgment reached. Some courts deal with only one topic, like family law or landlord-tenant issues, but most are general trial courts.

Then, there are higher courts, usually one or two extra levels. These provide for a review of the legal decisions (not a review of the facts) made by the trial courts, to ensure that the law is being properly applied. The uppermost of those is the supreme court for the state, which has final say over how state laws are interpreted.

The same type of hierarchy exists for both the state courts, to handle state law issues, and federal courts to address federal law questions.

Lawyers are admitted to practice per state, and can practice in any court in that state. While many are specialists in practice, they are all trained in the basic requirement for most types of law.

To answer your initial question, while the structure of the court system is not that complicated, in application the legal system as a whole is ridiculously complicated, even for trained attorneys. But that's why it takes a doctoral degree to practice law.

Answer 3

The legal system is complicated in any country, I figure lawyers made it that way, so we will be needing them always, because other than that, why would you want to be near a lawyer.

What do you call 100,000 lawyers at the ocean floor?

Answer 4

Yes it's complicated.
But so is every other system.
Really any system that is simple -- will be really unfair as well.
You want the court with experience to listen to every case.
You want to separate fact finding powers form law application powers. You want to have appeals.
All these things make the system more complex, but also more fair.

Answer 5

Yes!! it's over complicated!! the politicians that's all they think. We suppossed to goin progress, but seems we're going back!!