Court Opinion

ID: 9657867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:39:56.22328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.025726
License: Public Domain

*26WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
(concurring). All lawyers have a special responsibility to society. That responsibility involves far more than merely representing a client. Lawyers are the guardians of the rule of law. The rule of law forms the very matrix of our society. Without the rule of law, there is chaos. Lawyers not only have a responsibility to their clients, they have an equal responsibility to the courts in which the rule of law is practiced, and to society as a whole to see that justice is done. I cannot, and do not, share the view of my dissenting colleague that these responsibilities can be adequately fulfilled by allowing individual lawyers to choose whether they will participate in an organized professional bar. During the years that membership in the bar was mandatory, programs and services that were aimed at fulfilling the special responsibilities lawyers have to society grew and flourished. These programs produced little economic benefit to the lawyers, but great benefit to society. These programs and services, detailed below, will inevitably suffer if we go back to a voluntary bar. Revenues will be unpredictable; programs and services will more and more reflect efforts to recruit and maintain membership — inevitably at the cost of those programs and services for which there is no economic benefit to the bar and to its members. I therefore write to answer and respectfully express my disagreement with my dissenting colleague.
I am not unmindful of, nor unsympathetic with, the feeling of those who are repelled by the very thought of being forced to join any organization regardless of personal preference. I too shared that repugnance when I first entered the field of law some 27 years ago in 1965. My journey from repugnance to acceptance to advocacy has not been particularly constant nor smooth. But it has been shaped by people, experiences, and perspectives *27gained. All have led to a growing personal awareness and an inner certainty of conviction that being a lawyer in today's society involves very special responsibilities to society that can best be served, perhaps only be served, by an integrated, mandatory bar association.
In 1965, when I first entered law school, was not that far in years and experience from those years when the bar was completely voluntary. It was not until 1956 that the bar became mandatory. In 1965, and in 1968 when I graduated from law school, many remnants of those voluntary days were still in evidence. Although there were then many highly motivated lawyers, professional in the very best sense of that word, from my perspective the bar as a whole seemed to be dominated by the "bottom liners," the ones for whom the only thing that mattered was the economic pay-off from the degree or the practice. At that time, the bar was largely male dominated, women and minorities were few and their prospects were not bright. They constituted less than half a dozen from my class of 200 plus students. If the bar at that time offered programs and services designed to fulfill our responsibilities to society as a whole, they were few in number and relatively unknown.
Fortunately, at that time, a medley of voices from within the bar began to be heard. They spoke of a growing social awareness, a growing social consciousness, that as members of a special profession, we have special responsibilities. They spoke of the need to enhance and improve our delivery of justice to the people, to bring the courts into the 20th century, to educate and enlighten the public about our system of justice. They spoke about the responsibilities of the bar to the poor in society, the responsibilities of those who call themselves lawyer to engage in continuing legal education, the responsibilities of all of us to police ourselves and discipline those among *28us who stray from the high standards of expected practice.
Those voices were eventually heard. The judiciary was transformed from a hodgepodge of courts to a model for the country, the cost and time for justice on appeal was lessened, public defender programs at the state and local levels were established, free legal services such as legal aid came into existence, continuing legal education became mandatory, a system of discipline that heretofore had winked at even serious transgressions was transformed into a system of discipline with teeth. Women and minorities played an ever increasing role. Today, women and minorities account for 50 percent or better of those who stand before us to be sworn into practice.
None of these changes came easily. Placed into existence over a long period of time, many changes were hardly noticed. But when you look at where we were 25 years ago, and where we are now, the change has been fundamental and it has been enormous. Only an irrational person would claim the change has not been beneficial.
As I look back, I cannot see how much of this reform could have been accomplished without a mandatory bar. Certainly there were other variables present during those years, but the primary variable that could affect change that has been in place since 1956, and not before, was a mandatory bar. The mandatory bar gave a platform and an organization to those voices of responsibility within our profession that were not "bottom liners." Socially conscious men and women lawyers were able to take our profession from those pre-mandatory days when the public was largely forgotten in the rush to economic nirvana, to a place today that, although not the epitome of professionalism, is far closer *29to the ideal than 25 years ago. Without a mandatory association, and the resulting economic freedom of that association to push and propel these changes, I have no doubt the bar today would look much more like pre-1956 than post-1956. And some wish to return to those good old days of yesteryear? Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them.
Those men and women who helped bring about change, and they know who they are though most of us don't, recognized that being a lawyer involves far more than an. opportunity to make a comfortable living. They knew, and it is hoped most of us now know, that being a lawyer involves a special responsibility to society itself.
I fear, in fact I predict with certainty, that a return to a voluntary bar would be a return to those days of stagnation, to those days when the question of "what's in it for me?" drowned out the question of social responsibility. The lessons of the past are evident.
The mandatory bar has been an essential force in assisting lawyers to fulfill their roles as guardians of the rule of law. Of equal importance, the mandatory bar has been a guiding force in assisting lawyers to deliver an increasing quality of justice to society and to those they represent. Many if not most of the services the bar delivers in pursuit of these goals are not self-supporting and are not capable of being subject to user fees. To cite but a few, they include: publications to members keeping them up to date on legal developments including orders and decisions of this Court which regulate the profession and discipline attorneys; publications for public consumption informing the public on matters of justice and the rights and responsibilities of citizens under law; lawyer referral service, assisting members of the public to find qualified lawyers regarding specific legal issues; assistance and promotion of pro bono activities; fee arbitration service; *30assistance in the disciplinary ■ system by appointing approximately 200 lawyers and lay persons to district grievance committees; ethical advice and guidance to members; assistance to alcoholic, ill and disabled lawyers through the "lawyers helping lawyers" program.
If the bar is voluntary, market forces will eventually dictate that much of the bar's resources, economic and personnel, will have to be directed at recruiting and maintaining membership. The "what's in it for me" syndrome will drive programs, services, and personnel in the direction of self interest, not social responsibility.
If we go back to a voluntary bar, time and money spent on recruiting will mean less time and resources spent on programs. Guess what programs?
If we go back to a voluntary bar, time and money spent on maintaining membership will mean time and money not spent on other services. Guess what services will suffer?
The answers are obvious. Programs and services not targetted to the "bottom line" will inevitably suffer. They are not economically self supporting and by definition can never be self supporting. Uncontradicted testimony at the public hearing on the question of an integrated bar evidences that this is already happening with our few short years of "experimentation" with a voluntary bar. One officer testified with chagrin that with increasing frequency she had to commit significant time to the issue of membership and justify the bar's existence to its voluntary members by engaging in activities such as "obtaining discounts at Shopko and at hotels around the state so that lawyers can say the bar responds to 'my' needs." Katja Kunzke, Testimony at the Hearing Before the Wisconsin Supreme Court Concerning Rein-stitution of Mandatory Membership to the Wisconsin State Bar Association (March 4, 1992) (tape of hearing *31available at the Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court).
All who call themselves lawyer have an obligation to maintain these programs and services that inure to the ultimate benefit of the public. These programs and services go directly to the heart of our social responsibilities. They cannot be maintained without adequate and predictable support levels. To say that only those who voluntarily choose to be a member of the bar must pay for them is simply wrong. All share in this responsibility, whether they choose to individually participate in the bar or not. It is a responsibility assumed when they chose to be a lawyer, and continues as long as they choose to call themselves lawyer. This mantle of social responsibility, to society at large and to the individuals within it, is not one that can be shucked at will.
The public's perception of lawyers is well known and well documented. We ought not hide from ourselves the fact that some of that perception is self imposed. But as a profession, enormous strides have been made in the past few decades, positive strides towards the recognition of our special professional responsibilities and the fulfillment of them. We are not there yet, but as we get closer to being true professionals in the very best sense of that word, I feel confident that society, who already knows that lawyers play an enormously important role in society today, will come to realize that we are striving to fulfill our responsibilities. And with that realization will come, it is hoped, a greater respect for the profession and those who practice it.
As a graduate of a law school, no person is forced to join any organization, nor to practice law. But if that person wishes to practice law as a member of the legal profession, then he or she must take on the responsibilities of the profession. Those responsibilities come with *32the territory, and are far better fulfilled together than apart.
I am authorized to state that CHIEF JUSTICE NATHAN S. HEFFERNAN joins in this concurrence.