On the eve of the annual conference of the Union International des Avocats, Delos Lutton calls for lawyers to reach out to the public

In my year as President of the Union International des Avocats, I have seen law societies around the world struggling with similar problems. Some of those law societies rose to the occasion and some did not. The hallmark of those who are successful is that they take care of the basics, and in addition they are purposefully engaged at every level of their communities and governments, as well as internationally.


The basics include enforcing clear ethical rules, establishing and maintaining high educational and training standards for entry into the profession, operating an effective continuing education programme, guaranteeing to the public appropriate redress for professional misconduct, and providing group purchasing power in various areas that benefit both lawyers and their clients.


But truly effective bar associations and law societies go beyond the basics. First, they turn outward to engage the public. It is extraordinarily easy to lose the confidence and goodwill of the public. Once people get the idea that lawyers are just in it for themselves, with no real care for the public, they justifiably resent any privilege or status accorded to lawyers and quickly begin to think of the legal profession as just another greedy set of service providers.


An effective bar association sets out on regular campaigns to teach the public the basics of the law and how the legal system works; it offers ways of resolving smaller disputes less expensively; it explains why the independence of the legal profession is important to protecting the rights and liberties of the people; and it teaches why legal professional privilege is worth protecting against the constant efforts of many who offer seductively simple short-term reasons to chip away at its edges.


Effective bar associations also turn outwards to engage governments. There are those who say that the legal profession risks being perceived as political if it actively seeks to participate in the creation and modification of laws, and comments on the wisdom of legislative efforts. My view is that the legal profession has a duty to speak up at least on issues that affect the administration of justice and fundamental law reforms. It also has a duty to speak up when the government attempts to bypass citizens' rights or when it undertakes actions that are not in accordance with laws or treaties.


The benefit of this ongoing engagement, regardless of who is in power, is that governments get used to consulting with the legal profession, and even rely on that consultation, a process that can lead to better and faster law reform and that protects society from the constant threat of government overreaching.


Effective bar associations also engage their counterparts in other countries. The legal profession today is global and the challenges it faces are global. Law societies everywhere are facing similar problems at the same time. The last thing we need is retrenchment into parochial thinking at the very moment when the legal profession is facing its biggest challenges.


By turning outwards and engaging energetically with the public and governments at many levels, and internationally, we will do a much better job of protecting the fundamental values that are critical to democratic societies.


Delos Lutton is President of the Union International des Avocats and a partner at Milwaukee-based law firm Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren