Top Ten Changes in the Legal Profession Since 1979, Part I

Scale_of_justiceI was asked by Michael O’Hear to serve as the January guest blogger (blawger?), and thank him for this opportunity. I teach courses in Constitutional Law, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, and American Legal History at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, where I began teaching in the Fall of 1987.  My website is at www.michaelariens.com. I started at Marquette Law School in the Fall of 1979.  Since I have little idea what might interest any audience, I decided to use the crutch of an-end-of-the-year (or in this case, beginning-of-the-year) Top Ten list. I’ve listed what I perceive as the ten most important changes in the American legal profession since I entered law school.

1. Increasing competition for business by firms engaged in the private practice of law.

No other change comes close to the impact created by the increased in competition for clients. Several of the other changes listed below are a direct or indirect result of the quest for business. Intensifying competition has altered the promotion-to-partner tournament played by associates; including a substantial lengthening of the years required to reach partnership; changed the calculation of both associate and partner pay (including the dreaded “eat what you kill” compensation method); led to changes in the organizational structure of law firms; increased the shady business of case runners in the personal injury field; and affected the rules of ethics, the mentoring system of recent law school graduates, and law school applications.

One reason why some newly-minted lawyers are paid $160,000 to work at a large law firm is because those lawyers will eventually earn the partners significant profits. It is also because those lawyers are unlikely to make partner at the firm where they start. 

Continue ReadingTop Ten Changes in the Legal Profession Since 1979, Part I

Representation, Outcomes, and Fairness in Legal Proceedings

gideonAs my colleague Rebecca Blemberg recently blogged about, California has moved in the direction of recognizing a right to counsel for civil litigants with critical legal needs.

The concept of a constitutional right to counsel in certain civil cases is often referred to as “Civil Gideon,” after the Supreme Court decision that established the right to counsel in criminal cases, Gideon v. Wainwright. Critics charge that recognizing a civil version of the right established in Gideon will cause “waste” by increasing litigation. A recent Wall Street Journal law blog post quoted Ted Frank, for instance: “What is clear is that you will never have a simple eviction because every single one of them will be litigated. . . . The rest of the poor will be worse off because of that.”

I guess “waste” is in the eye of the beholder. As a student noted on another blog,

While I understand the drawback of added litigation, I’ve never found it to be particularly persuasive enough to override a law aimed at a greater level of fairness and justice. In most custody cases, an agreement is more likely reached when the party who can afford an attorney bullies the other party into signing something. As for eviction cases, I believe that at the end of a notice period, a landlord must file an eviction case with the court anyway to have the eviction legally recognized. Moreover, the American judicial system can be overwhelming, confusing and inevitably adversarial. While many civil parties successfully file suits pro se, I think it is fair to say that they often lack the knowledge and skills to successfully plead a case.

Indeed, it seems beyond dispute that pro se litigants are, on average, overwhelmingly disadvantaged by lack of representation.

Continue ReadingRepresentation, Outcomes, and Fairness in Legal Proceedings

The Real Value in Appellate Oral Argument

moot-court_trimmedDoes appellate oral argument still matter?  In some courts with exceptionally heavy caseloads, such as the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, oral argument is vanishingly rare.  But even in courts that regularly hold oral argument, some observers claim that it has devolved into a dog-and-pony show unlikely to move judges who have already reached unspoken decisions based on often-voluminous briefing.

It may surprise some practitioners to learn that certain appellate courts have even taken to issuing “tentative” opinions prior to oral argument.  Certain branches of the California appellate courts have been among the leaders in this regard; the web page for the 4th District, 2nd Division claims that “the justices do not sense that their deliberations are any less objective than before the tentative opinion program began” and that “counsel almost unanimously praise the program.”

Proponents of the practice contend that it has several distinct advantages. 

Continue ReadingThe Real Value in Appellate Oral Argument
Newer Posts
Older Posts