Canada has a crying need to dial back the power of lawyers

I am happy with the job my lawyers have done for me.

Q. Why are divorces so expensive? A. They are worth it.

I think mine cost $311, all of that for gov't fees to process everything (plus $15 for the DIY kit I got at Chapters). I was very careful and did exactly what was called for. Even got offered a job at the Ontario Court to help others LOL

This is a political site-- as such we ought to be thinking not about the role lawyers might play in someone's divorce but also the role they play in the creation of law, testing of law and application of public policy. We also would be considering the impact that they play as the interpreter of laws designed for the population as applied to an individual.

One problem here is this is a tack that the Conservatives take -- saying they want to reduce the role of lawyers. The Conservatives when they decide they want to do something they don't want human rights, consistency with other laws or fairness of process in a legal context to interfere with their projects. They don't want the judiciary to be a branch of government inasmuch as it is a check on the power of the House of Commons. Trouble is with the Conservatives we are seeing those checks and balances being thrown away. With a majority the government wants to rule without question.

People here are not all understanding the relationship between the individual and public policy and the role that the judiciary plays in testing law through real live examples. A political party may make a law but they do not consider in detail how it will apply to all it covers and this legal test is an important part of not only applying the law to people but creating the feedback that loops back to the creation of new law and improvements.

The fact that many do not have access to law is serious. However, the idea that the solution is to reduce the power of it to hand back to politicians who create law is even more disturbing. The reason access to law is so important is that it is the last refuge of justice for people when things go wrong. The solution is not to reduce the power of lawyers (practitioners of law), or make this an amateur activity. It is to democratize access to law. This is the approach that has been used in the past. The current government and right wing governments for years have been chipping at the democratization of this power through reduction or elimination of public organizations that make legal challenges possible, reduction of legal aid mandates, reduction of access to legal aid, reduction of the quality of legal aid.

In a truly democratic state you would think that all citizens should be able to get expert advice and help on the law.

Instead of going after the power of lawyers we should be looking at access to start. For one the cost of a lawyer needs to be evaluated so that we reduce waste through over-payment, excess costs (some of that money does not go to the lawyers themselves), excess frills and opulence in offices.

Another proposal could be a tax on judgments paid by both sides in civil cases with the money raised going to support access to lawyers. Those who have economic hardship could plead that to the judge to reduce it in some cases. This would create more of an incentive to settle reducing overall costs.

There is no question however, that if the public wants a democracy the public has to invest in access to legal services. People should not be in a position where they cannot afford to buy their justice. But this is not the Conservative message of reducing the power of lawyers I am getting at. Instead it is about acknowledging and sharing this power for the common good.

I realize some in this thread have said that my point is a drift because it did not suit their narrative but I still believe this is the essential question. Lawyers are important and essential to rule of law and individual freedom. We need to remove barriers to access rather than pretend we can reduce the need by "taking away the power of lawyers." In the end if we do this correctly we may enhance their power while reducing their income. We may enhance even their prestige and recognition while increasing access.

Since this is a public policy/political place -- please let us not lose sight of the role of the judiciary in society and public policy while we indulge in a lawyer hating exercise which is much like shooting fish in a barrel.

Yes, where do they get off interfering in everything? Those lawyers have far too much power, and should just keep their noses out of our democratic system:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/17/immigration-backlog-hal...

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/184/8/E391.full

Actually, these administrative tribunals were partly created to move away from courts, where judges: 1) often had a predisposition against workers due to their ideological makeup/adherence to constraining jurisprudential trappings/etc.; 2) often had no expertise in the way labour relations work. Not saying these administrative tribunals are perfect, but their institution clearly has been an important improvement in the way labour relations claims are settled.

Secondly, most of the time, people can be represented by non-lawyers before these administrative tribunals.

In most cases lawyers act as agents for other parties (exceptions include those who sometimes act on their own initiative on civil rights issues or interests of personal concern). Since the wealthy and powerful are the ones most likely to be able to afford lawyers, there has always been and is always likely to be a tilt towards their interests in legal matters, although reform movements have often used lawyers to help advance their cause. However, the two main forces driving the decline of the middle, working and poor classes are the financial and manufacturing sectors as they buy lawyers, politicians, the media, and votes (through political advertising). The most obvious case of the latter involves how Citizens United blitzkreig advertising rapidly changed votes in the Republican primaries and is now influencing the presidential election and could soon be coming to Canada (if Harper can manage it). The financial sector has supported the transfer of manufacturing and other sectors to union-free sweat shops in parts of the US friendly to their interests and to the Third World. While lawyers have played a significant role in assisting this process, they are not the central driving force. Legal institutions need to be reformed in order to rebalance social equity, but this will not solve the problem unless electoral financing, union rights, civil rights, taxation, oligarchic control of the media, financial and environmental  regulation are also addressed. To address these, lawyers are important in drafting legislation and enforcing regulations. Thus, lawyers are both part of the problem and part of the solution.

Well said jerrym

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Peter Gall, you know the guy that represented Seli and their paying foreign workers $3.77 an hour, at least since Gordon Campbell came to power in BC, basically runs the LRB in BC, and most everyone knows that.