Court Opinion

ID: 9756148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:10:08.682381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:14.970483
License: Public Domain

Hayes, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part. I agree with the majority that the correct standard to which an attorney should be held in the performance of professional services is not the standard of his or her locality. If there are only two lawyers in *26a small town, and both are incompetent, they cannot set a standard of inferiority for a third who comes to town.
I disagree with the Court’s holding that the applicable standard of care should be a state standard. Doctors in Vermont are required to adhere to standards based upon the medical profession generally. Lawyers should be subject to a similar standard of care based on their profession.
The scope of an attorney’s obligation to his or her client should not vary with geography. The law schools of today are truly national in legal training. Vermont and almost all other states give a multistate bar examination. Much of our continuing legal education is national in scope. Why then must candidates for admission to the Vermont bar clear a multistate hurdle, and be required to meet only a state standard for performance once admitted?
I would require that the standard of care for Vermont lawyers be based upon the legal profession generally, and I would.reject a state or local standard.
We are members of a profession that has not won a full measure of public confidence. To adopt a state standard is to say that what may be considered attorney negligence in New Hampshire may not violate the standard of adequacy of legal services in Vermont. Such a caliper to measure attorney conduct will lower public esteem for the Vermont legal profession and will arouse suspicions in lay circles that we have selected a cemetery in the Green Mountains in which quietly to bury the faults of our legal brothers and sisters.