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suffers a hurt or a loss, someone else is expected
to pay and the first reaction of the man-in-the-
street today is 'Whom do I sue?' This has meant
a change in the public approach to the law. a
more critical attitude towards the profession and,
at the same time, a growing inclination to make
use of the legal services, themselves made more
readily available by
the legal aid and advice
schemes, by those who previously might have felt
unable to afford the risk of bringing their cases
before the courts. Contemporaneously, there has
developed a disinclination by the public to pay
for professional services. If medical services are
provided free for all, why should not legal, ac
countancy, surveying and other professional ser
vices be provided free—or, if not free, at a much
lower cost? The labourer may be worthy of his
hire, but not the progessional labourer!
Within the profession itself significant changes
have taken place. New professions have sprung
up, which encroach upon the work previously
regarded as being within the exclusive domain
of the lawyer. Full employment has led to an
acute shortage of recruits in legal offices, whether
or not holding legal qualifications. Pressure of work
and the continual demand for speed have been
followed by a degree of mechanisation and special
isation by solicitors which has resulted in a general
increase in the number of partners in legal firms.
Members of the profession themselves are much
more aware today than ever before of the need
to supply an efficient legal service. There is a
continually
growing
demand
for
'continuing
education' by lecturers, films, pamphlets and so
on and a consciousness of a collective professional
duty to the public which, for example has been
manifested in many countries by the acceptance
of the responsibility to make good losses caused
through dishonesty and of the obligation to ad
minister legal aid and advice schemes.
A further respect in which the outlook of the
profession has changed since the war years is in
relation to the part which it should play in the
field of law reform. No one is as well qualified as
the practising lawyer to know the respects
in
which the law needs reforming, not only because
of his detailed knowledge of it, but because of
his practical experience of its effects upon the
public and of their reactions to it. A postwar
development within the profession has been its
willingness to incur considerable expenditure of
time and money upon law reform measures and
the undertaking of research in this field.
In yet another way the profession has moved
with the times. Partly, no doubt, because of ill-
informed attacks which have been made upon
legal procedures and partly because public interest
in the law seems to be second only to interest
in medicine, lawyers, despite their traditionally
conservative approach, have accepted the inevit
able need for public relations and made use ol
modern
techniques. Long-standing rulings,
for
instance, on the propriety of
'advertising' have
been interpreted broadly so as to admit in the
professional interest of the use of such media as
television and radio, in order to lay before the
public the services which are available to them
and the reasons why criticised procedures have
to be retained.
Finally, as regards
'fusion' or
'no fusion' of
the profession, a subject raised repeatedly and
discussed at the first of the Commonwealth Law
Conferences held in London in 1955, there ap
pear at the present time to be indications that
some members of the Bar and some solicitors are
in favour of it, but the demand does not appear
to be sufficient to make it likely that the generally
accepted view that two separate branches provide
a better legal service, if they can be supported
economically, will be reversed within the fore
seeable future. Changes may no doubt take place
in the respective functions of the two branches of
the profession, but it seems to be highly desirable
that there should be a separate branch of the
profession to which the lawyer in general practice
and particularly the sole practitioner can
turn
for specialist advice and assistance.
Some Trends
Bearing all these and other factors in mind
it seems probable, looking ahead, that litigation
as a whole will tend to increase in the field of
common law and crime but to decrease in Chan
cery matters and that there will be a tendency
for the courts themselves to specialise; for ex
ample, special 'traffic courts' may be estabilshed.
In
the courts of criminal jurisdiction
there
may be a tendency, as in civil cases, to dispense
with a jury, except in certain types of case, or
at least substantially to reduce the size of the
jury. Lawyers and the courts alike are acquiring
a better knowledge of the forensic sciences, so that
full use may be made of scientific evidence and
proper weight be given to the views of medical
and scientific witnesses.
New scientific discoveries, particularly in
the
period immediately after the experimental stage,
may well lead to new causes of action and, unless
and until strong remedial steps are taken in con
nection with the use of the motor car or there is
substantial unemployment or a general fall
in
the national wealth, the number of motor cars in
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