Legal System Dynamics Subcommittee
| Publication year | 1993 |
| Pages | 253 |
| Citation | Vol. 22 No. 2 Pg. 253 |
1993, February, Pg. 253. Legal System Dynamics Subcommittee
The Legal System Dynamics Subcommittee was formed in 1991 and serves as a counterpoint to the majority of the other subcommittees of the CBA Professionalism Committee. The underlying perspective of most of the subcommittees is that unprofessional conduct is a problem created by certain individual lawyers within the profession who are unaware of appropriate professional standards, or who are not convinced that they need comply, and who may well gain advantage and success by not complying. This Subcommittee has been exploring a contrary perspective, namely that our legal system itself, not the misbehavior of particular individuals, is the principal cause of growing unprofessionalism.
For a number of months, Subcommittee members explored how the system causes unprofessional conduct. The approach of the group was first to create a vision of what an ideal legal system would look like. The Subcommittee's vision focused on expanding the role of lawyers to include consideration of Society's interests in addition to client interests; modifying the adversary system and creating alternative models; changing the system so that cost, delay and concepts of legal privilege do not interfere with fair resolutions; reorienting the system so that time does not equal money and money is not the lawyer's primary goal; rethinking how disputes are resolved and what an appropriate resolution should be; and recognizing that lawyers and the law should not be expected to resolve every problem.
The Subcommittee focused on the role of lawyers and compared the present reality with the Subcommittee's vision of what the role of lawyers should be. Five principal reasons were identified for lawyers' failure to fulfill a more positive, broader role: (1) the current billable hours compensation system; (2) ethical rules and the "lawyer culture" which require zealousness, among other things; (3) the fear of criticism and malpractice claims; (4) the rules of practice, including the rules of procedure; and (5) the adversarial basis of the legal system which may well be inappropriate for today's interdependent world.
By probing further, the Subcommittee identified three overriding systemic causes of problematic lawyer...
To continue reading
Request your trial