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Thursday, December 01, 2005

Law - Trial-less lawyers turn to pro bono work

"Trial-less Lawyers: As more cases settle, firms seek pro bono work to hone associates' courtroom skills." So reads the headline to a really interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today, on the front-page of the Marketplace section. The article reports that:

many law firms are coming up with creative ways to score trial work -- reaching out to judges, government agencies and legal-aid associations, offering to donate associate time in exchange for referrals of cases that seem particularly likely to go to trial. Typically, once a firm gets such a referral, it handles every aspect of the case.

"Firms have really begun to realize the advantages of donating legal services as a professional development tool,"

Unfortunately, currently this story is accessible to paid subscribers only.

[More] Fortunately, I have now located the story, reprinted here in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It begins:

Marc Kadish, a partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, recently made an offer to federal judges in Chicago, where the law firm is based: The 1,300-member firm would represent, pro bono, any prisoner with a case set for trial who didn't already have counsel.

Since prisoners are prolific case filers and most private lawyers disdain such cases, Mayer Brown thinks the offer will give its young associates the opportunity to hone their courtroom skills -- and it might be one of the few chances they get in the near future.

Courtroom trials have been steadily declining since the 1980s. There were only 5,500 federal civil trials across the U.S. last year, down sharply from 14,300 in 1984. State civil jury trials dropped 34 percent between 1976 and 2003, even as the volume of civil cases disposed of during the period rose 165 percent. In criminal court, meanwhile, federal sentencing guidelines are so stiff that more than 95 percent of all criminal defendants opt for plea deals that offer leniency rather than risk going to trial.

There are plenty of reasons behind the falloff. Scared off by huge jury verdicts, such as the $253 million awarded this year to the widow of a man who died after taking Merck & Co.'s Vioxx drug, more civil litigants are arbitrating or settling the majority of disputes, legal experts say.

The cost of litigation, which often drags on for years, has scared off some plaintiffs. Changes in the law have also had a dampening effect on trials: Judges can now more easily dismiss cases that rely on junk science. "It's like you prepare for a big game and then it gets canceled, so you have to negotiate a final score," says James Winton, a partner with Cleveland-based Baker & Hostetler.

Furthermore, lawyers say fewer marginal or low-damage cases are being filed now that some state legislatures have imposed caps on jury verdicts.

The trend worries some judges. "There is so much settlement and arbitration that we are losing sight of the basic right to trial by jury," says U.S. District Judge David Hittner of Houston.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 1, 2005 12:39 PM
Posted to General Law Related