Lawyers as Healers

Lawyers as Healers

In spite of the fact that lawyers are one of the oldest professions and an indispensable aspect of modern societies, they are perceived by public as dull, insensitive and emotionally stolid. The main reason for lawyers to have such an ignominious public perception is that lawyers are unresponsive to the emotional needs of their clients. More often than not, Ð'ÐŽÐ'oclients who have been victimised come to lawyers expecting that their emotions will matter and that lawyers will care; yet they come away disappointed.Ð'ÐŽÐ'±

A sect of legal community has realised this problem and attempted to change it by approaching their clients in an entirely new way. Their new approach, known as the holistic approach, differentiates from the traditional approach due to the facts that these holistic lawyers provide emotional healings as well as legal advice to their clients. They argue that Ð'ÐŽÐ'othe ultimate goal of a lawyer is not to Ð'ÐŽÐ'®winÐ'ÐŽÐ'Ї but to achieve justice and healing.Ð'ÐŽÐ'± The new approach has generated a great amount of controversies. The essence of the debate can be summarised into two questions: Can lawyers be healers? If yes, should they be healers?

In answering the first question, holistic lawyers rely on history to justify their modern approach. It is argued that lawyers as a profession first appeared when King Henry II of England, decided to send his travelling justice on regular circuits through his realm in an attempt to replace the old method of trial by battle with peaceful resolution of disputes. As a result of this, advocates soon emerged to represent those appearing before the travelling justice and the tradition of legal profession was born,

Ð'ÐŽÐ'oFrom the beginning, the lawyers were intended to remove the sting of trial by battleÐ'ÐŽÐ'­ Thus, even for litigators, our history emphasises our role to resolve disputes, not to create them.Ð'ÐŽÐ'±

Hence, since the beginning, lawyers were intended to be healers of conflicts. The role of these ancient advocates bears more resemblance to the recent ADR lawyers than the general modern legal profession, which are being largely perceived as Ð'ÐŽÐ'osleazy money-grubbing hired gunsÐ'ÐŽÐ'± , and Ð'ÐŽÐ'ozealous warriorsÐ'ÐŽÐ'± who focus more on winning than peace-making and healing.

Therefore, by Ð'ÐŽÐ'orediscovering our historical origins as the settlers of disputesÐ'ÐŽÐ'± , lawyers can go beyond treating legal problems to Ð'ÐŽÐ'orestoring emotional and spiritual peaceÐ'ÐŽÐ'± for the clients.

However, in spite of the plausibility of the argument, this justification can be rebutted by reminding all lawyers that their professional responsibility is not to heal clientÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs emotional predicaments, but to deal with their legal problems. It is evident that

Ð'ÐŽÐ'oUnless you have been trained, trying to act as a professional counsellor or therapist is exceeding your professional competence.Ð'ÐŽÐ'±

To heal without professional competence is analogous to going into battle without training. It is not only unhelpful, but potentially disastrous. A healing process orchestrated by an unprofessional healer may easily go astray and aggravated the emotional state of clients. Law is not a healing profession; it is a profession to solve legal matters. Healing is the job of counsellors or therapists, and lawyers lack the professional training required to heal a person.

Furthermore, it must be noted that most people seek emotional support and spiritual healing from family and friends, it is natural that victims would only tell traumatising experience to those who are close to and can empathise with them; thus lawyers must first extend the hand of friendship to the clients in order to heal them and safeguard the healing process.

Indeed, many holistic lawyers such as C. Fried have preached the practice of lawyers-clients friendship as a necessary means to initiate a healing process. However, FriedÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs approach conflicts directly with the dominant ethical requirements of the profession, which is the need to be objective. Ð'ÐŽÐ'oA detached approach to the clientÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs problem is the proper approach and rarely should they be friends.

Perhaps the harshest criticism drew from William Simon, who described FriedÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs portrayal of the lawyer-client relationship as Ð'ÐŽÐ'omore like prostitution than friendshipÐ'ÐŽÐ'± because

Ð'ÐŽÐ'ounlike friends, lawyers are paid and are granted a special franchise by the state to give legal advice, and friendship is an Ð'ÐŽÐ'®openÐ'ÐŽÐ'Ї contract that the parties are continuously free to redefine or revokeÐ'ÐŽÐ'±

Therefore it is evident that lawyers the professional competence as well as the means to form a close relationship with clients which are necessary to initiate a healing process. The answer to the first question abovementioned is clearly negative.

In answering the second question, startlingly many areas of economics provide ample ammunition for critics to argue against the claim that lawyers should be healers.

The law of division of labour states that the specialisation and concentration of workers on their single subtasks will lead to greater skill and greater productivity on their particular subtasks than would be achieved by the same number of workers each carrying out the original broad task.

The success of Fordism and Taylorism, indicated by a greater productivity of assembly line introduced by Ford Motor Company, is an undeniable testimony of the advantage of specialisation and division of labour.

Bases on this assumption, it would be reasonable to deduce that traditional lawyers who focus entirely on providing legal advice would provide more specific and accurate legal advice than lawyers who also act as healers, because these traditional lawyers spend more time on law compare to holistic lawyers who have to split time between law as well as attending the emotional needs of the clients.

After all, specialisation is the price of modernisation. There is a role for everyone and everyone must stay in their rightful roles. No matter how much emotional support a lawyer provides to the clients, one cannot be a competent lawyer if one does not provide the best legal counsel to the