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For over fifty years leaders from the bars of the western states have met together to discuss their common interests and shared concerns. From the Dakotas to
California, Alaska to Hawaii, and Texas to Washington, the seventeen state bars of the Western States Bar Conference include an impressive list of former bar
officers as well as current bar leaders. All are trying to get their arms around today's issues and prepare for those to come.
As a president of the South Dakota Bar (2,403 members, a budget of $900,000 and a staff of five) addressed the group, he compared the issues faced in South Dakota
with the issues faced in Texas (66,000 members, a $25,700,000 budget and 300 staff members) and remarked how, despite the disparity in their size, the issues faced
in South Dakota were identical to those faced in Texas.
It struck me as particularly poignant that we are not alone in facing these interests nor are we unique in our approaches to addressing our concerns. Other than the
State Bar of California (171,143 members, a $100,315,000 budget and 484 staff members) which seems to have more peculiar problems, the rest of us tend to be facing
down the same series of historic concerns and similarly anticipating the same curious future. We are all dealing with varying degrees of success with:
1. Professionalism. We are continuously attempting to balance increasing demands of running our practices like businesses without sacrificing the goals of behaving
professionally and adhering to higher standards of fiduciary obligations and broad responsibilities to our system of justice.
2. Multi-Disciplinary Practice (MDP). As market forces change, we are trying to appropriately balance our historic roles and independence with the challenges of
increased competition from other businesses and professionals. Should we join together or continue to spurn the attempts of non-lawyers who wish to combine forces?
While some states are taking initiatives like Utah's in trying to be responsive to consumers' wants, other states feel threatened and choose to dig in around known
practice models.
3. Multi-Jurisdictional Practice (MJP). Again, as market forces, transportation and technology permit greater mobility in our practices, states are struggling to
balance the long-standing rights of strictly determining the particular qualifications of each entering applicant with the thought that such provincialism could
become barriers for business. About half the states provide a limited type of reciprocity, (Utah is not among those) and currently the states of Oregon, Washington
and Idaho are presenting rule changes to their supreme courts which would permit entrance into each state's bars after passing only one of the other's bar
examination. Utah has set up a task force to review these issues.
4. Access to Justice. We are all attempting to seek better ways to provide more services to low and middle income people. Most states have adopted programs such as
ours, where lawyers may volunteer to provide pro bono help and are matched up with appropriate candidates. Some require reporting. A few are attempting to mandate
services. Many states have consortiums similar to our own "and Justice for All" group which solicits donations. One state actually has convinced its
legislature to collect funds through the sale of affinity license plates.
5. The Independence of the Judiciary. On both the federal and state level, the third branch of government seems to consistently be faced with challenges from those
who seek to influence or predetermine judges' roles and their abilities to act as neutral decision-makers.
6. Finally, Technology. Much of our last conference was devoted to discussing the impact of current technology on the profession and the practice of law and in
prognosticating how rapidly increasing technological advances and client expectations will cause us to more rapidly alter the way we practice and deliver our
services to the public.
When I began to practice law twenty years ago, our office had one very large computer and each secretary had the latest model IBM electric typewriter. Redrafting
was always problematic because it required in most instances an entire re-typing of that individual page and often a re-typing of whole documents. The computer was
reserved for the really big stuff. The fax machine was new and seemed but a luxury. Our desks were strewn with square pink sheets letting us know who had called
and very briefly what their messages were. A more forward-thinking friend told me that some day each lawyer would have a small computer on her desk where she could
access all the firm's files and communicate with our clients. I told her she was nuts.
Well, it seems I was nuts. The future is today and tomorrow gets closer all the time.
- The group talked at length about how the bars may improve their own web sites to increase timely and relevant communications with lawyers. Included in this
were discussions on changes in the delivery of continuing legal education and how to provide better education on items of more particular interest to lawyers'
desks at times they alone select. Desktop CLE may never replace the need to share ideas in person, but the ability to have individual study and joint on-line
seminars is not far away.
- The web is providing increased speed and thoroughness in our own research. Web research providers are continuing to improve their range of services and there
is more and more information which is free and currently in the public domain.
- There are increasing numbers of office management packages available through individual groups for customization for lawyers and firms and there are a growing
number of services available through web based application service providers (ASP's).
The western states bars, like those elsewhere, are struggling to reinvent themselves in a world which is changing while maintaining the core values which have set
us apart and provided a system of justice which, despite its imperfections, works pretty well. In March of 1949, Popular Mechanics projected that "where the calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs thirty tons, computers in the future may only have 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh one and a half tons." The president of Digital Equipment in 1977 surmised that "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."
We don't know exactly what is out there and our guesses may also be a bit off. Whatever discomfort there is to that thought, there may be solace in the knowledge
that we are not alone nor are we unique. Perhaps there is also some security in our understanding that great minds are struggling all over. We are all in it
together and are collectively trying to do our best.
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