Stephen,

I have always enjoyed your work on parpolity and I would like to get your feedback on this. Whereas your post seems to be more focused on the legislative aspect of government, I have an idea/question for the judicial branch.

When I discuss with someone our legal system – be it a judge (I know some) or the average grunt like myself – we recognize the main ills of our judicial system: it’s corrupt. The incentives are not aimed towards truth and justice, but rather making the big bucks via winning court cases, regardless of truth or justice. In other words, private enterprise makes a mockery of the courts.

Obviously, if we were to gain something resembling a participatory polity we might have also achieved some form of participatory economy. Naturally I wonder how that would look. I have read your comments on juries serving terms and consider it an interesting idea but right now I am thinking about the roles of lawyers and judges and their incentives, how they are graded, rewarded and so on.

What issues do you think would arise, if any, if lawyers didn’t represent clients? What if they served both the defendants and plaintiffs? What if, instead of competing teams of lawyers there was one team cooperating to collect evidence, testimonies and share that with the jurors along with legal statutes (the traditional role of judges could be absorbed into this group)? What if their incentive was monetary only to the degree of effort and sacrifice they expended to do their jobs and their success was not measured in terms of "winning" (since they dont represent a side") but rather achieving justice.

Let’s say someone has a dispute with another person and presses charges. The team of lawyers, resembling some blend of a workers council and an IFB (we can call them a Legal Facilitation Board), meets with both the plaintiff and defendant to hear their sides of the story, gather evidence and applicable laws, and show this to the jurors who deliberate and reach a decision. Let’s say the defendant is found "not guilty." The plaintiff could have the right to appeal to a different LFB and jury. Let’s say that court overturns the ruling. This overturning could reflect negatively on the LFB who could face consequences (ie their jobs) if their council finds they are not providing an adequate service since too many of their rulings get overturned.

Thoughts, ideas?

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