Monday, March 28, 2011

What Lawyers Need To Know About Being Independent?

By Michael Bailey


A Harvard professor mentions that lawyers are the people who are able to find out the truth and fight for justice. Lawyers can perform their job better if they are able to remain independent from public opinion, their clients, and the government. You have to realize that the way of the government is that they are sensitive to rights of individuals and ensuring a fair process, and for lawyers to do their work; they must be independent in thought and action.

Independence is always important because not having it, we would not only degrade ourselves professionally and impair our ability to discharge our duties to clients, but we also would not be able to engage in various types of socially desirable work whether it is aiding the disadvantaged or participating in the policy issues of the day. What you need to know, he says, is that there are four major types of independence that lawyers must adhere to. According to him the types are independence in the practice of law, independence from public opinion, independence from clients, and independence from government. With most lawyers do not fit the old pattern of the free professional, implying the independent attorney working in a rural or small community, Independence in the practice of law is harder to come by now.

For lawyers in this environment, they were self employed and could take on the cases they wanted. Law firms and corporations are now hiring a lot of lawyers and in turn these lawyers have less freedom in terms of decision making and with work. Pressures from work now befall a lot of lawyers.

Law is supposed to be a profession and not a business as what most corporations is making it out to be. Many times people are looking to reduce costs and delays, which often leads to a preference for avoiding trials at all costs. Domination of each lawyer will end up with the domination of judicial pressure or client pressure.

A lot of times, both parties can benefit going to trial even if reaching a compromise is what is really needed. Another type of independence is from public opinion. In our society however we take pride in understanding the rights of unpopular individuals and groups and ideas, and it is the lawyer who must strive to protect them.

Back in the day, it was the press that helped whips the public into frenzy over what was termed the Boston Massacre, where British troops fired into ruckus a mob killing five colonists. The lawyer, who went on to help write the Declaration of Independence and served as the nation's second president, defended the soldiers, an unpopular choice for him. But the lawyer believed that no person in a free society should be denied the right to counsel or denied a fair trial. With that, over time his representation of the British increased his public standing and made him well respected. With the total of six soldiers that were charged, four were acquitted and two were convicted only of manslaughter.

The lawyer later wrote that it was one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of his whole life and one of the best pieces of service he ever rendered to his country. Short term bowing to popular opinion may not necessarily produce the greatest payoff in the long run. According to him, lawyers need to remember that they have an adversarial system in which fairness depends on spirited advocacy on both sides. One thing lawyers need to do is learn to do away with the desire to be liked, to compromise their independence, their willingness to stand up for their clients.




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