legal sanity

During my vacation, I met a retired lawyer who shared his views on the alleged atrophy of professionalism many lawyers complain of today. He believes this is nothing new. As an up-and-coming partner at a Midwestern firm, he heard the same complaint from his mentors who had heard it from their own mentors and so on back in time. By his own admission, early in his career, he relished a good legal battle. If an adversary was rude, boastful or downright underhanded, it only increased his drive to succeed. As he matured as a lawyer and individual, however, he began to lose patience with insolent and deceptive practitioners. He saw their tactics as unnecessary hindrances to the legal process that squandered the resources of lawyers, law firms, courts and clients. So, in his world view, there likely is no rising incivility and decaying decorum in the profession these days. They’re age-old problems. But, he did acknowledge that times have changed in that lawyers, educators and journalists are now ready and willing to bring these issues to light to facilitate profession-wide reform.