[Grommit]

Reading through the posts, I don't think anyone has really hit on the essence of the matter: I don't think that we personally bash lawyers at all. To be more precise, we dislike the philosophy behind the concept of the study of law.

We dislike the approach to law that involves drawing precise conclusions from the wording, and we dislike the approach to writing law that creates this wording. We dislike the mentality of trying to find loopholes and we dislike the mentality of trying to find contradictions.

But we do not dislike lawyers. We just have a distaste, after years of sifting through meaningless legal jargon, for the spirit of law writing and the mess of law interpretation.

Where does our distaste come from? Can it be our everyday experience? No, because although America in general has a similar feeling towards law, people in Robotics have a particular dislike that glows in posts on this forum.

The answer lies in FIRST and Gracious Professionalism. We don't see the necessity of precision in lawwriting or law interpretation. Although outsiders might desire very precise guidelines behind a game or sport, such as ping-pong, whose rules are unmistakably precise about the most obscure of situations, under Gracious Professionalism, we have a stronger respect for the general idea and attitude that governs a game's existence than for the precision in crafting the specifications of the game itself. We see it as Gracious that teams should observe what most reasonably appears to fall within the legitimate boundaries of the intent of the game. We see it as professional to abide by the referees' ruling, especially considering how much thought the referees have put into most fairly carrying out the intent of the creators of this year's game. We feel that the attitude of those who overly examine the wording of laws and take unneeded precision in crafting rules that define every possible situation clearly are in conflict with the general values of FIRST. We do not necessarily feel that such procedures would be entirely unwelcome, but we do not welcome criticism that stems from "inaccuracy of the rules" nor "finding loopholes" in the game manual.

Kris, please realize that we bear no contempt towards the hardworking lawyers that keep our streets safe... we only find bitter an attitude that subtitutes nitpicking for common sense and bickering for gracious professionalism.