'Over-lawyered and under-represented': ABA chief issues rallying call for justice

INTERVIEW: 11 September terrorist attacks, Enron fallout and MDPs top president's agenda

They may be two countries divided by a common language, and two professions that are vastly different in size (a million lawyers in the US compared to around 100,000 in the UK), but in terms of burning issues there is more that links than separates lawyers on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Speaking to the Gazette, Alfred Carlton, the North Carolina-based lawyer who has just taken over as ABA president, identified three main topics currently preoccupying the US legal profession: public access to lawyers and legal advice; the crisis of confidence in all professions following the Enron and Worldcom debacles; and the balancing of national security with individual rights in the wake of the US's international 'war on terrorism'.

Mr Carlton, a corporate law partner at Kilpatrick Stockton in Raleigh, is a no-nonsense southerner, who, in US terms, expresses fairly liberal views.

Mr Carlton pointed out the irony that while his country is home to the highest per capita number of lawyers - there are now twice as many as when he qualified in 1975 - it is also home to a middle class that struggles to afford legal services.

He said: 'Our studies tell us that Americans at any level of income have a hard time finding a lawyer.

And this especially affects the middle class.

Americans of moderate means will once in every two-year cycle have a need for legal services - whether it is writing a will, adopting a child, a minor brush with the law - and half of them go unrepresented.

The great American public is over-lawyered and under-represented.

People don't know how to find a lawyer or they fear that a lawyer will cost too much.'

One of the main planks of Mr Carlton's presidential year will be to set up a commission to study the issue of access to lawyers for those of moderate means.

The allegations of corporate malfeasance at Enron and Worldcom have dealt another blow to the US profession's already low reputation.

An ABA task force is currently considering the consequences, and a draft report has already recommended a re-examination of the duty of in-house counsel to disclose potential corporate wrongdoing.

But has boardroom misbehaviour banged the final nail in the coffin of multi-disciplinary practice (MDP) in the US? Mr Carlton says it has not.

'Enron and Worldcom have only answered the easy part of the MDP question - you can't do auditing and consulting and you can't do auditing and legal.

But what about the country lawyer who has a joint venture with the chiropractor and the undertaker? The MDP issue will come back in the guise of ancillary business practices and the division of fees with non-professionals - we've got 40 states looking at it.'

But it was the fallout from 11 September that hung over the ABA conference most profoundly.

The association has, until now, maintained a balance of supporting the fight against terrorism, while cautioning that civil liberties must be protected.

In Washington, the gloves came off, with outgoing ABA president Robert Hirshon attacking the government for breaching the constitutional rights of certain US citizens.

Mr Carlton maintains some good can come out of the trauma of 11 September.

'Our research tells us that we get a once in a generation opportunity for legal issues to be top of the agenda with the public.

'In this country over the last 20 years we've seen the death of debate - the demonisation of dialogue.

This is a situation where we can say to the American people that there is more than one right answer.

There is a grey area that we have to deal with.'

Jonathan Ames