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GAZETTE
JULY/AUGUST 1992
many courts when those disputes
have no place in court whatsoever?
The cost in terms of money, and
more seriously, emotion, is too high
to litigants and to society.
"Solicitation, of the Bhopal strain,
is only one malady which has
infected our profession. Another
. . . is advertising, which . . .
creates hucksters, not lawyers."
Access to legal services in my
country has become too costly,
partly as a direct result of the
timesheet mind-set, and diminishing
attention to the quality of one's
work. In America, many law firms
assign annual mandatory quotas for
hours billed. Lawyers who do not
meet such quotas face reduced
careers, at best. How often do senior
lawyers take the time to tutor a
firm's young associate? To nurture
their sense of professional pride? To
recall that law firms were once and
should still be institutions of
continued learning and scholarship?
To look upon themselves as mentors,
not bosses?
The sceptic's predictable reaction to
these comments is going to be to feel
uncomfortable; to want to disregard
them and say to yourselves, "It won't
happen here" or "Well, all he is is a
former lawyer who is now a Federal
Judge in America telling us not to do
those very things which he himself did
before he was appointed by the
President of the United States". But,
before you reject these comments,
let me ask you to measure them by a
simple test: How many of you could
actually afford your own services, if
you ever needed a lawyer and were
on the losing side of the case? I have
a hunch that secretly most of you
know that you could not. In America
many cannot even afford their own
lawyer! Legal fees have become a
symbol of the lawyer's greed. Access
to legal services of our citizens, has
become seriously obstructed; the
financial ability to afford today's
lawyer has largely become a sport of
kings. Delays in resolving disputes
cripple the system and serve only to
impede justice.
I need not tell you that the effect of
all this on professional ethics can be
devastating. All lawyers must agree
to that. I think that is what Dean
Griswold meant when he said that
we have a profession, if we can keep
it. In a recent U.S. survey, 86% of
the American people questioned said
that they have encountered unethical
lawyers. Now, the accuracy of that
statistic is not what is significant in
my mind. What is significant is the
fact that 86% of people surveyed
believe
and
have the perception
that
they have encountered unethical
lawyers. 88% said that they
encountered unqualified lawyers. I
am concerned about the erosion of
the professional status of lawyers in
the public mind, and about our own
professionalism toward our work
ethic. I would remind you that this
occurs, ironically, at a time when
our profession is getting new
importance and dignity in Eastern
Europe, where the focus on freedom
is now intense.
Simply stated, we are not keeping
our profession. We are becoming just
another variety of business. The Law
should be a market place for ideas,
in all countries, not an assembly line
for the disposition of client files to
meet some annual arbitrarily
established income expectation.
" The Law should be a market-
place for ideas in all conutries,
not an assembly line for the
disposition of client files. . . . "
It looks to me as though the focus
of our profession has shifted away
from client concerns and has moved
more to profit motives. The fire of
our zeal for the client's welfare is
out.
Worse, really worse, I find that today
more and more lawyers, in my
country at least, have let themselves
become the combatants in the
dispute, not the clients (whose
problems then get lost in the
personal turbulence between their
advocates). Let me stress that I can
think of nothing more demeaning to
the profession or diminishing of our
precious system, whose only goal is
the search for truth and the
administration of fairness to all.
Lawyers, in short, must be problem
solvers . . . not problem creators.
The deterioration of our sense of
professional self has contributed
largely to the growing surliness
among lawyers, in court and at the
conference table.
(Continued on page 223)
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