Dear Editor,
Thank you, UBJ, for publishing Eric K. Johnson’s “Open letter to the Newly Established Utah Supreme Court Professionalism Counseling Program Board” (Sept/Oct.2008). This piece is a refreshing alternative voice for those of us who are already regulated to death and don’t feel the need for still another layer of micromanagement and regulation of our practices. Eric’s counterpoint, like Alexander Pope’s “wit,” contains views “oft thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”
One of my favorite Palestinian philosophers once raged at “lawyers and pharisees,” denouncing both in the same breath for their burdensome pettiness and emphasis of form over substance. He proposed an alternative – one “Golden Rule,” as aspiration for our better intentions, and not subject to arbitrary accusation, committee review, or judicial inquisition.
Do the new civility rules help? Good question. Like mandatory pro bono (another failed attempt to force attorney “goodness”) civility should be encouraged, with judges and those who would impose regulated civility on those of us who do the daily “heavy lifting” to lead the way, set the example and let their lights shine on for the rest of us to absorb and thus be guided.
Do we really need this “Program Board?”
Do we really need courts using “civility” of counsel as a basis for decision, rather than case merit? Is there even a sensible way to define “civility” in the context of attorney misconduct sans contradiction, vagueness, dissonance, and overbreadth?
I would not object were the entire “Program Board” scheme to be returned to the committee that hatched it, for reconsideration, internal commentary, and asphyxiation.
Sincerely,
R. Clayton Huntsman