McDowell Memo: The Legal Profession

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The Legal Profession: What Happened 
In the past few years we have seen a change in the way attorney act and are beheld by the community. I am not an attorney but I have many friends and some relatives that are it is not an easy life.. Attorneys are judged on results as are most of the world but results in a courtroom have many factors that are beyond the facts. 

Attorneys must keep the Judge happy with them, they must maintain a good rapport with the court support staff or they will always be the last case of the day and no time to give a good presentation. So we should cut them some slack . But the problem is we are punching out attorneys at an alarming rate. Law School grads are inhabiting every nook and cranny of all businesses. The problem with that is they are taught to be a result driven rather than merit driven persons. They only see the result and not the validity of the actions to get there. An example of this was an attorney that I worked with on a project where we could have concealed an issue from the government and not have any financial exposure. He immediately went to the result driven method which was to conceal. I on the other hand felt and knew that we would do more harm to our reputation and wrong message to our employees if we did not self report and ask for a chance to remediate the issue. Thank God our boss also an attorney had the same concept of the importance of reputation over result as I did. 

One of the other issues that face attorneys today is the eroding of legal protections for both the attorney and their client. Recently we have seen early morning raids in high profile case of the attorneys offices to get copies of notes from meetings between the attorney and the client. These notes have been used in prosecutions. Attorney client privilege goes all the way back to English common law and is the same as Doctor Client privilege. It speaks to the very core of why we hire an attorney so that we can we represented to the very best. Well that can't occur if we are not 100% open and honest with our attorney. Now we cannot do this or a US attorney will get a search and know our every thought. How do attorneys prepare a  case that way? Probably the greatest violation of our civil rights ever. 

Finally television has presented Attorneys as being successful only if they are ruthless and win at all costs. I for one was much more comfortable with attorneys that sought the facts and kept secrets we tell them. So Attorneys out there this is what the public thinks of you How are you going to change this perception? 


A Ted Ex speech with Gerry Spence probably the winningest Lawyer of the last generation But who never covers up the facts just presents the best possible side of the fact. 

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