Edward Poll, The Daily Record Newswire
To be appointed to the bench, one must be licensed to practice law for five years. In other words, one must have some maturity to judge others. But what is too much maturity?
Bar Association leaders (generally older themselves) are suggesting that older lawyers be closely scrutinized, and tested upon reaching age 75, to assure their competence and ability to practice law.
There are no statistics that show either disciplinary or malpractice issues are prevalent in the older lawyer population. On the contrary, it appears that the bulk of the disciplinary problems arise during midcareer. If, as I have said on multiple occasions, our bar leadership were truly concerned with the public interest and protection, they would focus their energy and attention on where the problem can be demonstrated.
State Bar reports consistently show that more than half of all disciplinary complaints arise from poor practice management. But neither law schools nor the State Bar teach lawyers how to run a law practice, how to effectively interact with clients or any other “soft” skills relating to interpersonal relationships. Their only focus is on the technical, sometimes called “substantive,” skills for lawyers.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has developed standards for medical student competency in compassionate care, ethical behavior and professionalism; we don’t require anything of the sort in our law schools. In fact, legal educators have told me that their view of law as a profession means that any such programs would be trade-oriented and therefore inappropriate for law schools.
Is it any wonder that our bar associations don’t require law practice management programs as part of the MCLE requirements? The attitude at the very start of training is perpetuated throughout a lawyer’s lifetime.
Now however, the Senior Lawyers Working Group of the State Bar of California is suggesting that there be a continuing legal education course mandated on recognizing age-related cognitive impairment, a class on how to wind down or pass on a law practice, and an assessment test of cognitive impairment. These are marvelous programs; however, they don’t address the issues where the bulk of the problems appear. They instead could be incorporated into an overall law practice management program, to be sponsored by law schools and the bar alike.
One proposal for reducing the California bar exam from three days to two days has currently been shelved because of potential changes in the teaching of law that would impact the subject matter to be tested. Delay for this reason is appropriate. However, there still is not on the table a full panoply of programs relating to the effective management of a law practice. Until that is done the ideas that are being considered will be merely piecemeal and, in my opinion not effective.
The “conspiracy” between law schools and bar associations continues to demonstrate the archaic attitude that management and customer/client care issues are irrelevant. And we wonder why lawyers get a bad rap, why clients are angry and rightfully believe they have no recourse to redress the management wrongs committed by lawyers.
Bar associations give practice management training for attorneys short shrift. Yet, when more than half of today’s discipline structure revolves around complaints over practice management, this should be the major focus of the Bar’s education requirements. If studying management could reduce the number of complaints against lawyers of any age (and all evidence supports this), why only focus on the supposed incompetence of older lawyers?
Older lawyers who keep up with evolving professional rules and trends through MCLE should have no trouble remaining in practice as long as desired.
