Question

What are some advantages/disadvantages of US legal system?

Support your response with appropriate examples and/or sound reasoning reflecting an understanding of the relevant content knowledge.

Answer 1

“The US legal system is based on federal law, augmented by laws enacted by state legislatures and local laws passed by counties and cities.”

Some advantages and disadvantages of US legal system are mentioned below-

Advantages –

• Strong Proofs – US legal system requires strong proofs because judgment is given purely on the basis of proofs provided by both the parties in case.
• Good Lawyers – US legal system has the quality of lawyers and many experienced ones are there to protect the interest of Innocent people.
• Adversarial system – US legal system has adversarial system which is very fair as both the parties get the right of defending themselves. So, by minimizing biasness both the parties can present their views in this and decision is taken by one jury which is neutral and gives the judgement after hearing both the parties.

Example – In US Legal system once Ace filed a case against his friend Bce who forged his bank account. Both the parties have their own good lawyers. Ace’s lawyers provided various proofs. So, very strong burden of proof helped them to win the case.

Disadvantages –

• Expensive – Hiring a lawyer can be very expensive for some people. As all the good quality lawyers generally charge huge fees to fight your case. It could be expensive for some people.
• Time consuming – In US legal system there is big backlog of cases, so new cases generally take lot of time to get into a judgment.
• Plea Bargain – Plea bargain is very popular in US legal system. Under this defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This can lead to injustice to one of the party.

For example- There was a case filed by A, who was poor against B who is very rich. A was able to higher slightly unskilled lawyer whereas B higher a good quality lawyer. B tried to solve the case by having an agreement with A. In this way they do not passed any trial of court as B gave some remuneration to A and A took the case back. This result in wastage of time and resources of A, also he doesn’t get the justice which he wanted.