Lawyers: Call for Restructuring

"It has been at least 40 years," said Stanford Law School Dean Bayless Manning, "since the perception became clear that the legal process is a part of the social process as a whole, but we have done little with that perception in our law schools other than to talk about it. We lawyers have a major new task. The problem before us is ourselves."

Manning was the keynote speaker at an impressive four-day gathering of law yers and informed laymen last week at the University of Chicago's Center for Continuing Education. Held under the auspices of the American Bar Associa tion and the American Assembly,*the meeting, titled "Law and the Changing Society," brought together Southern practitioners, Midwestern judges, Western prosecutors, Wall Street senior partners, law professors and law students, and such outside observers as Author Martin Mayer (The Lawyers). Dean Manning's job was to start a self-critical fire under the conferees.

Small-Bore Explosion. Many of them were being asked to criticize a profession that had brought them wealth and comfort, and there was strong initial resistance. But as debate developed, they gradually agreed that the law could become irrelevant to today's changing society if changes were not made. Most far-reaching was the contention that "access to legal services must be recognized as a matter of legal right."

The statement clearly extended to civil as well as criminal proceedings, and such a development would expand small-bore cases in a geometrically progressive explosion. Divorces, housing problems, job denials, welfare claims—all such relatively tiny disputes would entitle the principals to legal representation. Now, even with the OEO law offices that have sprouted around the country, most such cases never enter the legal process at all unless the disputant can afford a lawyer or has a claim that seems likely to establish a precedent.

Aides & Computers. So if—or, more likely, when—such a right is widely recognized, where will the huge number of lawyers needed come from? Well aware that a practice consisting of primarily poor clients would never be profitable enough to attract many able attorneys, the assembly members did not flinch from accepting the idea that Government support may well be necessary. Beyond that, the group suggested that more of the essentially repetitive tasks, such as drawing a will, processing a divorce or incorporating a small business, could be programmed into a computer that would produce standard clauses on command. Similarly, said the group, greater use can be made of paralegal aides—non-lawyers who are specially trained to do minutiae that re quire an inefficiently large amount of an attorney's time.

Among other specific suggestions in the final consensus report: — >A strong effort must be made to attract many more members of minority groups into the practice of law. Special help and encouragement is needed to help interested young men and women "overcome barriers imposed by poverty and cultural differences."