alt Hacker NewsI don’t know anything about the Brazilian legal system. In England and Wales, or in the US, the lawyers are officers of the court, which means they have a duty of candour, and a duty to put the integrity of the legal system above the interests of their clients.
That paragraph was never intended to be read by the judge or opposing counsel, it’s a deliberate attempt at messing with the tools they use to analyse the filing. The fact that it’s white text on a white background makes it an incontrovertible attempt at deceit.
We can discuss how wise it is to use AI to analyse legal documents for you, but that doesn’t change how outright deceit should be handled by the court.
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In EU continental law countries, while lawyers are often not seen as officers of the court (that's a common law thing), they are still seen as cog ("participants") in the justice system, so a kind of elevated cooperation requirement is expected from lawyers compared to laypeople. And any such attempt like this with these Brazilian guys would probably result in being disbarred or something very close to it. And that should be expected and normal - you should not have any special rights in the justice system as being a lawyer if you're trying to abuse that and not play by those rules. The measures are markedly different between countries. Like, in England, if your client would be lying to the court (like under oath) and you, as a lawyer, knows about that, they expect you to decline to represent the client. And if you're not, you'll be in breach of the Code of Conduct and will face disciplinary measures. See 1.4 of https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/code... This means being an officer of the court. But that's not the case in Hungary. In a criminal case, the lawyer has to represent whatever the client tells the lawyer to do so, even if that's doubtful: "8.12. In the performance of their duties, a defense attorney must not take a position that contradicts their client’s account of the facts. Even where the client denies the allegations, the attorney must not engage in any conduct that might create the impression that they harbor doubts regarding the absence of their client’s criminal liability, or that might suggest the defendant’s guilt." So, what it means to be a lawyer is quite different from country to country, but this kind of conduct made by the guys in this case goes against granting lawyers any special rights in any jurisdiction, so should normally not be allowed.
Hypothetically, how would that apply to a litigant in person?
Frankly I am surprised they were not disbarred.
Lawyer here (Sri Lanka). Our responsibilites are similar to the UK--your duty as an officer of court comes first. Attempting to subvert court processes this way would result in sanctions, if not outright disbarment.