Better Public Relations Advocated For Lawyers

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30411, 9 April 1964, Page 7

Better Public Relations Advocated For Lawyers

. Improved public relations for the legal profession—advocated at the New Zealand law conference last year—are again proposed by an Auckland lawyer, Mr P. B. Temin, in an article in the “New Zealand Law Journal.” ‘Those people who have been accustomed to deal with solicitors know the services we can provide,” Mr Temm says. “But for ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’ we are, I suggest, something of a race apart. “In spite of our lofty, dignified silence, he is interested in us, more so than he is in his dentist or accountant, more perhaps than he is even in his doctor. “Films with a legal flavour on the cinema or television screens seem to acquire a great following, especially if there is a court case portrayed, even if it is, to the initiated, a travesty of the real thing.” Mr Temm asks: “Would it not be good for him and good for us to capitalise on this interest, by telling him in a pleasant and interesting way, as we could, what the law and the profession that serves it really is about?” Mr Temm suggests that the profession should take steps to tell the average man what it could do for him. “He knows now that he should see his doctor before his leg is chopped off, and that the most brilliant surgeon is not able to restore to him an amputated limb. “Why should we not tell him that to enter into a contract before we see its content might be to chop that leg off? “Or that to open his heart to some questioning constable may do him no end of harm in a different way?” Generation Behind In the first part of his article, Mr Temm suggested that the legal profession today was geared to a way of living that was a generation or more behind the times. He suggested that if steps were not taken in the near future to remedy matters, the solicitor of 20 years’ time might find his position seri-

ously worse financially and socially from that which his colleague enjoyed today. He referred to a remark made by Mr Justice McCarthy —now Sir Thaddeus McCarthy —last year that the profession and the whole administration of the law were lagging behind the needs of today, and that these times were “these surging years.” In his second article, Mr Temm proposes refresher courses for “the busy general practitioner,” who he says, “is lucky if he can keep track of the statutes and one complete set of reports.” “I suspect there are many solicitors who confine their researches to the pages of the ‘Law Journal’ and the discussions with their colleagues over lunch, largely because by the end of a tiring day they feel disinclined, or are unable, to pore over legal literature. “The point I make is that we just do not have time to keep up with the law as we now carry on practice, and that some approach ought to be made so that the general practitioner has an- opportunity to take due note of the changes that are occurring from month to month.” Qualifications Mr Temm also advocated breaking up the university course toward the LL.B, degree, so that a student could qualify as a solicitor at the end of four or five years’ study and then after an additional year or two years’ study be admitted to the Bar. “I recognise that the universities will not be willing to lower their academic standards, and do not suggest that they should do so,” Mr Temm says. “I merely submit for consideration, a way to maintain those Standards and yet to incorporate studies of practical rather than academic importance, so that our future colleagues are better fitted to practise our profession than have been many of their predecessors.” Mr Temm also suggests that legislation be passed to “plug the gap” in remedies available against the activities of unscrupulous salesmen. Legal Aid Mr Temm says that the profession should face squarely the need for a system of legal aid. The Legal Aid Act, 1939, has never come into effect. Instead, the profession has undertaken to see that all persons who require legal advice will be given it, if necessary free of charge. “But this understanding is not publicised,” Mr Temm says. “In practice it has meant that some of us have carried the burden while the rest of us have applauded the public spirit of our colleagues, and done nothing to lighten the load.

“As was made plain at the 1963 copference, our English

counterparts introduced a realistic system years ago, and no loud complaints seem to be made now. “Unless we recognise the fact that there are some people who will not consult us because they cannot afford to do so, and unless we take steps to put our house in order, we may yet have to accept a system of legal aid far less satisfactory in kind than the one we have devised for ourselves.” Mr Temm says he does not expect that much of what he says in his article will meet with universal approval. He says he knows that some, “dismissing these pages as the outpourings Of a prophet of doom,” will put their heads back in the sand. He concludes: “But I have some slight hope that others will find in what I have written food for thought, and that those responsible for steering the profession through ‘the surging years’ will not close their eyes to the rocks and shallows that seem to lie ahead.”