Time for an ethical 'makeover': lawyer responsibilities

As a young solicitor at a large firm in Sydney I frequently heard first hand about the various horrors inflicted on law graduates by the big firms. One junior lawyer I know was contacted by her superiors on her hen’s night so they could inform her that they had received a number of important documents and that despite her impending wedding she was still expected to work the very next day (being a Sunday).

Rumour has it that in another of the large firms a plaque is exhibited in honour of a junior solicitor who literally worked herself to death. Apparently she became so worn out because of her workload that she caught pneumonia and died.

Not surprisingly, after a number of years many young lawyers opt out of working for the big firms or exit the legal profession all together.

In the 2004 Australian Young Lawyers Survey commissioned by the Law Council of Australia, almost half of the young lawyers surveyed indicated that they did not see themselves practising law in five years time or that they were unsure. Of those admitted in 2002, 52.5 per cent of respondents claimed they were considering leaving their current job within the next 12 months.

The United States appears to have been more astute in identifying and responding to these problems. On the work front, for example, the new president of the New York State Bar Association, Kenneth Standard, has prioritised addressing quality of life issues. In terms of regulation, introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ensures that US corporate lawyers are now more accountable for wrongdoing by their clients.

A similar approach needs to be adopted in Australia. Laws prohibiting certain shredding practices and requiring reporting of client wrongdoing to external regulatory bodies should be implemented on a national basis. By themselves, however, such measures will not be enough to ethically reinvigorate the legal profession.

Empirical studies have revealed that normative issues are closely linked with compliance with the law. People do not merely obey the law because it is in their self-interest to do so, but also because they believe it is morally proper to do so. Lawyers not only need to be subject to greater regulation in their practice, but should also have a better understanding of the internal morality of law.

Where to begin?

Law school would be a start.

Over the past couple of decades more and more emphasis has been placed on law students simply learning the tools of the trade. Black letter law subjects are in vogue and jurisprudential subjects (wherein students are better equipped with a proper understanding of the role and nature of law) are increasingly seen as an irrelevant and unnecessary part of the curriculum.

In conjunction with this, compulsory ongoing ethical formation and pro-bono work by already admitted lawyers would go a long way to providing the legal professional with a desperately needed ethical makeover.