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12 Docket Call 1 (1977)

handle is hein.abarchive/dockcalog0012 and id is 1 raw text is: chairman's corner Harry Wright III C Several matters of priority concern to the General Practice Section were dealt with at the meeting of the Council in connection with the Mid-Winter Meeting of the American Bar Association in Seattle. Each resulted from work done by Committees since the Council's Fall Meeting. With respect to the ongoing debate over the matter of certification or designation of specialties Discussion Draft of the ABA's Special tee on Specialization, the Council updated continued on page 2 1IJ Fel ) ]] judicial survey on quality of advocacy: the jury returns A. B. In 1974, alarmed by judicial criticism of the trial bar and the spate of proposals for sweeping changes in the profession to which such criticism gave rise, the General Practice Section of the American Bar Association set out to accumulate empirical evi- dence on the state of advocacy in the United States. The Section's mandate to its Advocacy Committee was to determine the extent of incompetence in the courtroom, the extent to which such incompetency as existed affected the substantive rights of the lit- igants, and the manifestations, causes and cures of incompetency. The Section's concern was that, without some definite information on the scope, nature, or even existence of the problem, the Bar could not intel- ligently evaluate the many proposals for cures which were being made. How was the Bar to react respon- sibly, for example, to proposals for wholesale re- vamping of law school curricula until it knew *A B. Conant, Jr., Is Chairman of the Committee on Advocacy and a member of the fIrm of Shank, Irwin, Conant, Williamson and Grevelle of Dallas. 1. Lawyers, It seems, are no less gulity than their clients of proceeding on inadequate facts. In the Final Report of the Annual chief Justtice Earl Warren Conference on Advocacy in the United States, held in June of 1976, which considered Trial Advocacy as a Specialty. it was noted: Several conferees suggested that the accusations of lawyer Conant, Jr.* whether deficiencies in academic background gave rise to manifested incom- petence? How can the Bar embrace specialization for advocates or imposition of minimum standards for ad- mission to practice before courts until it knows whether inadequate knowledge of procedural and evidentiary rules is a cause for inadequa- cy In courtroom perfor- mance? In short, how does the Bar propose a sensible solution without knowing the scope :,f the problem?1 Tne Advocacy Committee elected to attack the problem by surveying all of the judges of general jurisdiction in the United States. The survey would continued on page 10 Incompetence were mainly anecdotal, and that there was no empirical data available to document such claims. The ab- sence of information, they said, made it difficult to deal pre- scriptively with the problems. Nonetheless. the conferees recommended by a wide margin that minimum standards for admission to the courts to try cases be adopted. The Conference also recommended trial advocacy be identified as a specialty and that a national bar association certify such specialists. contents SECTION ANNUAL MEETING .. 4 WASHINGTON DIGEST ....... 5 ATTORNEY MALPRACTICE INSURANCE .............. 6 ARIZONA ADVERTISING C A SE .................... 8 WHAT'S UP - WHATS IN ..... 14