Lawyer

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Lawyers are to be hired for court cases if you do not want to represent yourself. Only players with a lawyer qualification may submit a lawsuit to the Court. You can obtain the lawyer qualification by taking an exam in the university.

The Basics

A lawyer should be able to read the law, interpret it and convey strong arguments as to why it should be interpreted that way in court. Lawyers are responsible for helping the players regarding Stratham's Law, both inside the court (representing clients in lawsuits) and outside of it (writing legal agreements, for example). While working for a client, you must uphold the Attorney-Client Privilege, which forbids you from revealing any private client communications without permission.

As a Lawyer, you’ll only be able to work for a law firm that companies or players are able to contract or in-house as a lawyer for a single company. This is to prevent any one lawyer from being able to eat up too much of the legal market on their own.

Law System

BusinessCraft uses the Common Law system, which is a system of law that is derived from customs and precedents created by the Judges’ rulings.

The Judges serve under the Judiciary Branch of the Government.

The Supreme Court is the only court of the land, and has jurisdiction over all cases. The Supreme Court has the power of Judicial Review, which allows it to strike any government decision deemed unconstitutional or unlawful, after a plaintiff brings a case forward or makes an appeal of a government decision.

Note: In the past, there have been three, then two separate courts. This can be reflected in the previous court cases.

In Court

You should avoid misrepresenting the law to your clients and the courtroom, being dishonest and arguing in bad faith. Make sure to follow the proper courtroom etiquette, which includes using the lawsuit templates and formats. You can find them under the Court Guides section on the forums.

Be aware of the Court Rules and the consequences of breaking them - you might end up paying a fine or even getting disbarred. Act respectfully and always address the presiding Judge as "Judge" or "Your Honor".

Court Rules

Violation	Description
Perjury	Providing statements, testimony, or documents that are untrue to the court.
Contempt of Court​	Acting in a manner inconsistent with the Court Rules, being disrespectful, failing to appear in court after a Judge has issued a Writ of Summons, disobeying the Judge’s orders.
Influencing a Federal Judge	Attempting to bribe, protest or threaten a Judge to influence the outcome of an ongoing court case.

Additional information on the Court Rules and penalties can be found here.

Legal Arguments

Arguments based on the laws and the Constitution

The Constitution of the Republic of Stratham and the Acts passed by the Council of Ministers (or, previously, the Parliament) that have been signed into law can be used as arguments in court. All Acts of Law can be found here.

Chosen examples of Acts of Law:

• Corruption Act
• Frivolous Lawsuit Act

Arguments based on Stare Decisis

Stare Decisis is the legal principle of precedents, where previous cases can be drawn upon to make decisions on the current ones.

As a Lawyer, you should familiarize yourself with the previous cases and keep up to date with the new ones, in order to effectively use them as arguments. All cases can be viewed here.

Chosen examples of previous cases:

• Endeav0r vs Shoring
• Olympus vs Olympus Brands
• lxSecondary v Government of Stratham

Additionally, the DoJ vs Government (Appeal) was important, as this was the first appeal case and it set the guidelines for how to appeal cases run on the server.

Supplementary arguments

In addition to the above, a lawyer may use real world legal concepts, such as word definitions, as long as they don’t contradict server laws. Be aware that these should not be used as a sole argument for your case.