A legal kind of town

Jury trials, minority lawyers, the death penalty and a rerun of the trial of the Boston strangler were all on the agenda of a busy ABA conference last week.

James Morton reports

The scale of the American Bar Association conference, which began in Chicago last week, is daunting.

Buses cross the city, carrying delegates to thousands of sessions.

Don't like the session? Then you had better find another in the same hotel because the chance of getting back to another venue before the session is over is remote.

Having been centre of attention for three years, multi-disciplinary partnerships have dropped down the ABA's agenda this year, evidenced by the fact that only 16 people heard Margaret Richardson of Ernst & Young deliver a spirited promotion of the fully integrated model of MDPs, which could embrace lawyers, doctors accountants, engineers, and undertakers.'Those who hold the most negative views are the most strident and pre-empt decisions,' she said, noting that in England and Wales, the Law Society has dissented from the strong opposing views of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe and the Bar Council.There was a better turn out for a session on criminal trials.

Americans are keen on juries and are constantly seeking to improve their performance rather than abolish them.

One judge spoke with distaste about the court he had visited where the defendant was in a box separated from his counsel and unable to communicate with her.

It turned out he was referring to China, not England.The various sessions on racial and ethnic diversity in the profession were well attended but not necessarily by the right people -- few white faces were in evidence.

One of the problems of young minority lawyers was highlighted by Muzette Hill, speaking on training and mentoring.

'Like it or not, most mentors will probably be white males.

But all too often those mentors handle their young charges like a piece of Waterford crystal.'Barry Fields, hiring partner in a Chicago firm, added: 'One of the things that you see is white males simply do not want to criticise a minority attorney and they have to be corrected.

Minority lawyers also need to be thick-skinned and not overly sensitive to criticism.'Every year, the ABA retries famous cases; this year there were two.

The first was a re-trial of the Boston Strangler, Albert De Salvo, for the murder of Mary Sullivan.

This was art imitating life because one of the participating lawyers had instructions to try to re-open the case on behalf of the relatives.

The first half involved an explanation of how DNA samples were taken and matched from the exhumed body.

After that it descended into farce with an actor as De Salvo giving evidence with no regard to evidentiary rules.

The audience was evenly divided as to his guilt, but it seemed that all this showed was the danger of relying on uncorroborated confessions.Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the recent execution of Timothy McVeigh, the death penalty loomed large at the conference.

The ABA is seeking a moratorium on it until there is better representation by and funding for the defence.

Delegates were told of a case in Texas where the court-appointed defence lawyer, who specialised in tax work, had only been admitted six months, had no advocacy or death penalty training and had a speech impediment.

He had been given $1,500 to cover his fees and the cost of conducting an investigation.There was discussion of whether judges actively militated against fair trials, while nearby the second mock trial was going on.

That was a re-run of the people convicted of inciting a riot during the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968.

During the trial Bobby Seale, a Black Panther, had been gagged when he demanded a new lawyer and was thrown out of court for trying to speak through the towel.

Not guilty was the verdict this time.

The aggressive theme followed through to a session on media violence.

The panel could not agree whether exposure to violent video games led to actual violence.

Jack Thompson was the lawyer acting for the family of a girl shot to death after the defendant had been watching a violent film.

So far his action has failed because he could not show causation.

British speakers were not much in evidence.

An exception was Monty Raphael of Peters & Peters, who spoke on corporate self-regulation.

Another was Jeremy Carver of Clifford Chance, who was on the panel of the session co-sponsored by the Law Society on the new anti-corruption standards.

Citing the case of the Swiss lawyer who kept his files in apple-pie order down to noting bribes handed out over the years and around the globe, he commented: 'Lawyers cannot plead confidentiality for hiding crime.'Is such a conference worthwhile for English and Welsh lawyers if they have the time and money? Yes, is the answer.

US lawyers are very friendly and there is much to be learned from their legal system.

Much to avoid, certainly, but a lot which could usefully be adopted.James Morton is a freelance journalist