[Courses] [gimp] GIF patent

[Mary]

On Sun, Feb 20, 2005, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
> strange are the ways of the world! I'm a lawyer - at a recent linux meet i 
> gave a coupla talks on programming to a hall full of programmers, and several 
> people protested that if lawyers started programming, programmers would lose 
> their jobs. And then i listened to *four* talks on law by computer 
> programmers - so what happens to the lawyer's jobs? 

Sorry about that :)

I'm sure you know how important it is for people working on software to
know intellectual property law at least to an approximation -- I doubt
that they'll do much for lawyer's jobs: for starters in most countries
they need a law degree to be able to do a lot of the actual paid work.
And once they have a law degree... they're lawyers.

As for lawyers programming -- well, I've met a lot of people who program
as part of their job: scientists and medical practicioners usually. I
also know people who've become programmers having started out as
psychologists, artists and architects. I'm sure lawyers won't make a
significant difference to the employability of programmers. Besides, if
a lawyer programs... she's a programmer.

-Mary