Situational Third Down Slot Backs of the Legal World

I read Mark D. Killian's Florida Bar Article (2/15/14) "Legal freegans’ are looking to ‘eat your lunch". In my opinion, Mr. Killian in particular, and perhaps the Florida Bar in general, has missed the point. First, I wasn't sure what or who a "freegan" might be, so I looked it up. According to Wikipedia:

"FreeganBeliefs

Freeganism is based on the idea of anti-consumerism and that there is little need to purchase new goods because of the waste that society has produced and because they want to help the environment. The writings of sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Maus inspire many values of freeganism. Mauss studied the relationship between forms of exchange and the social culture. Not only do freegans use their finds for personal use, they also share their items and use them for free distribution. They believe that the general public greatly misuses resources because of the ideals and activities of mass consumerism and do not want to contribute to the consumerist society."

So, to extrapolate (or torture) the term then, a "legal" freegan is happy to take the legal left overs, the legal crumbs, in order to avoid the waste generated by the masses' endless demand for legal products. I don't think so. Apparently, freeganism was once explored on Oprah, wherein a show guest explained how she found castaway food, furniture, clothing, even housing, through urban foraging techniques, including curb shopping, and dumpster diving. For some, these practices are both political statements and lifestyle choice. However, I suspect that for many, freeganism is survival, plain and simple; and many embrace the label rather than think of themselves as poor.

The subheading of Killian's Florida Bar article is: "Advanced technologies and nonlawyer entities are encroaching on the traditional practice of law". I say thank goodness and its about time, but, of course, I am not a lawyer. I am pleased to know that nonlawyer entities and advanced technologies, are, in fact, "encroaching" on the traditional practice of law. Mind you, the Florida Bar has never really defined the "practice of law", so we can't quite be sure what the practice of law is, but, I guess ... maybe, like pornography, we know it when we see it. The "encroaching" part is what caught my attention.

By the people, for the people, and of the people. The last time I checked, the courthouses are built with, and, the court staff are paid with tax dollars. Judges are public servants.

Consumers should not be relegated to gathering legal crumbs. Without access to the legal system, consumers are excluded from justice.

http://www.justice.gov/atj/opa/pr/speeches/2010/atj-speech-100809.html

In a 2010 speech the ABA Pro Bono Publico Awards Luncheon, Laurence H. Tribe, Senior Counselor for Access to Justice, stated:

"Law and justice are not synonymous.  Law is a means. Justice is an end.  As we know all too well, law has not always operated to advance the cause of justice.  In American history, as in the history of the world, law has at times served to enslave and oppress, to obfuscate and entrap rather than clarify and liberate.  Defined at its most basic level, the mission of the Access to Justice office that the President and the Attorney General asked me to lead is to release the liberating and equalizing energies latent in our nation’s legal heritage – to help make the lofty rhetoric of “equal justice under law” into everyday, on-the-ground reality, making justice an active verb."

"As the Attorney General has repeatedly remarked, ours is a justice system in crisis, both in indigent defense and when it comes to providing adequate civil legal assistance for the poor, the working class, and the struggling middle class:

• When only the wealthiest among us have their legal needs met, justice will remain an unrealized ideal.

• When a public defender, buried in a mountain of work, has only moments to absorb the facts of a case before standing up to represent her client in court, justice is not alive and well. 

• When poor kids, theoretically entitled to counsel under Gideon and Gault, waive that right without legal advice in a flurry of legal proceedings incomprehensible to them, never understanding the long-term consequences such a decision can have for their opportunity to go to school, get a job, or enter the military, justice remains only a distant hope. 

• When so many people are evicted from their homes or lose custody of their children or are deprived of their ability to seek asylum in this country without the guiding hand of counsel, justice is not a reality."

"The problems we face aren’t episodic. They are systemic. Over half of those who qualify for and seek assistance from the 137 principal federally-funded legal assistance programs must be turned away because the level of available funding is so low.  Many of them have no other option.  They simply become more vulnerable to injustice because they are poor. And many millions more remain vulnerable to the shattering impact of a single event – a home foreclosure, a denial of medical or veteran’s benefits, a denial of help for a sick or troubled child.  These are the millions in our shrinking middle class who face devastation because, for them, the price of justice is too high."

"You have all heard of the trickle-down theory – the theory that, if we help those at the top, those at the bottom will eventually benefit from the fallout.  I’ve never been convinced about that. But I am convinced that, if we help those at the bottom, we will necessarily raise the level of the great river that flows when barriers to justice are lowered.

The challenge, of course, is to do just that — to use our privileged positions as guardians of the law to lift up the most vulnerable and needy among us – when so much else competes for our attention.  “The road is long,” say the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, 'With many a winding turn/ That leads us to who knows where/ Who knows when/ But I’m strong/ Strong enough to carry him/ He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.'"

And in response to Jordon Furlong's sports analogy as far as whether attorneys' roles should be that of a quarterback, a wide receiver, or a situational third down slot back, I say the latter. In my ideal world, attorneys aspire to the legal equivalent of the masterful cat-like agility of Kansas City's Jamaal Charles -- and leave document preparation to document preparers.

You don't need an electrician to change a light bulb.

You don't need a doctor to apply a band-aid.

And you don't need an attorney to prepare a legal form.