From "The Legal Reformer" publication of HALT ---
There was a slight revision made in the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct
(as there is from time to time) by a 13 member ABA Ethics 2000 Commission.
HALT believes that the entire effort, while commendable, was a resounding waste of time. Responding
to an article in the "ABA Journal" on this issue, HALT wrote that: "Lost in the din of self-congratulatory praise
reported in the 'ABA Journal' is the fact that nothing has really been changed by the latest round of 'improvements' to the
Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Even if the ABA adopts all of the recommendations of the Ethics Commission, and
even if every state follows suit, consumers are still left in the dark.
"The strongest ethics rules in the world are worthless, if consumers don't know about them.
Yet nowhere in the hundreds of pages of new rules is there any requirement that lawyers provide clients any information about
their ethical responsibilities."
[ The above reprinted with permission of HALT, Inc. ]
NEWS FLASH FROM CHICAGO ---
In August, 2001, the Associated Press reported that the American Bar Association defeated the requested
overhaul of the legal ethics code for lawyers.
Since very few citizens in today's America are willing to make the effort, expect nothing but the
worst from the vultures of our failed legal system. In other words, as long as we do nothing, we are getting exactly
what we deserve.
An important excerpt from a paper written by HALT Executive Director James C. Turner and Associate Counsels Thomas
M. Gordon and Steven E. Serdikoff:
We face a crisis in access to our civil justice system that affects consumers nationwide.
Each year, thirty-eight million low and moderate income households need legal help, but are denied access to the American
civil justice system. Part of the solution to this crisis in access lies in expanding the availability of less expensive
legal services provided by non-lawyers. Instead of embracing these innovative methods, however, bar associations in
state after state are misusing statutes that prohibit the "unauthorized practice of law" to threaten and intimidate non-lawyers
who provide legal help to those who can't afford an attorney. By supporting efforts to make innovative alternatives
available, particularly to low and moderate-income households, the consumer advocacy community can help to ensure that all
Americans have access to our legal system.
Unlike every other sector of the economy, the legal profession has avoided outside regulation.
The results are predictable. According to the American Bar Association, in 1996, of 118,891 complaints filed against
lawyers nationwide, only one-half of one percent (542 lawyers) resulted in disbarment. In that same year only 1,866
lawyers were subject to any punishment, including disbarment --- a figure which represents just over one and one-half percent
of the total complaints filed. Client compensation funds, the organized bar's only attempt at reimbursing clients for
losses incurred to dishonest lawyers, are no better at protecting consumers. Combine this with the leniency of the disciplinary
system and it often is impossible to recover money from a dishonest attorney.
Not only does attorney self-regulation fail to protect consumers, it actually harms them by helping
to create a government-enforced monopoly on the provision of legal services. In most businesses, licensing serves to
protect the public from incompetent or dangerous practitioners. Since in most professional licensing situations those
who practice a profession are generally not the same as its regulators, regulations coincide fairly well with what is needed
to protect the public. In the legal profession, however, the regulators are the same as the practitioners. This
creates a conflict of interest that results in regulations that protect attorneys from competition while failing to protect
consumers from attorneys who engage in misconduct.
The failure of attorney self-regulation and the increasing exclusion of all but the very wealthy
from our civil justice system represents a dual crisis that harms tens of millions of Americans each year. HALT ---
An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform has developed a set of reform projects that attack the twin problems of accountability
and accessibility through a program of consumer education and advocacy. By informing and empowering consumers of legal
services, we are working to mitigate the immediate impact of the structural problems in the civil justice system. And
through our advocacy efforts, we are working for long term systemic reforms that improve both accountability and access in
the civil justice system.
[ Reprinted with permission of HALT, Inc. ]
