A Message from the President Ofthe Colorado Bar Association
| Publication year | 1987 |
| Pages | 2129 |
1987, December, Pg. 2129. A Message from the President ofthe Colorado Bar Association
At its September, 1987 meeting, the CBA Board of Governors approved and adopted the "Colorado Compact," The Colorado Compact is a commitment on behalf of the organized bar to try, in a number of specific ways, to improve the way we serve the public. I thought it might be useful to set out some of the thinking which led to our adoption of the Colorado Compact, and to describe the Colorado Compact briefly.
In law school, and in our professional lives since law school, we have spent much of our skill and energy "learning the law." There is, indeed, a lot of law to learn. The emphasis in law school, in practice, and even in continuing legal education has been on learning substantive law and on being good technicians.
Along with the substance, we have, of course, learned some procedural law. But while we've learned the rules of civil procedure, we've learned very little about the process of human behavior. Like physicians, we often look at our clients in subject-matter terms. The doctor may talk about "the stomach cancer on 5 West" when speaking of a dying patient. The lawyer may talk about a "breach of contract case" when in fact what's at issue is the business survival of a client. We need to acknowledge that often disputes, like diseases, are psychological in origin.
Many times in our practice, we and our clients face difficult situations which are, to a large extent, driven by interpersonal relationships and psychological influences. As a profession, however, we often don't understand enough about the psychodynamics of conflict to be able to do the best job for our clients. Historically, clients have come to us seeking our help in communicating with others and in solving their personal and business problems. We need to do better at gaining and using the skills in communicating and problem-solving which they so rightly expect of us.
The Colorado Compact seeks to address, in a meaningful way, some of the legitimate concerns of the public about lawyers and the practice of law. The basic points of the Colorado Compact are outlined below.
Historically, we have been perceived as a learned and caring profession dedicated to public service. We...
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