Critical Look at U.S. Legal System

“The American civil legal system is slow, expensive and inaccessible. Too often, it’s also unjust and corrupt. The core cause of this breakdown is that lawyers have been allowed to shape the legal system to serve their own purposes instead of the public’s.”

And so begins “Legal Breakdown,” a new 88-page critical look at the legal Establishment by the editors of Nolo Press, a Berkeley self-help legal publisher. The book offers 40 ways to fix the legal system, ranging from the minor (strengthen lemon laws, write laws in plain English) to the radical (remove divorce and probate from the court system and abolish punitive damages).

Some of the 40 specific proposals are almost naive in their simplicity, others are original and creative, but all of them are digestible food for thought. Nolo should send complimentary copies of the book to all state and federal legislators, as well as the legal Establishment it attacks.

Weaved throughout the treatise is a strong distrust and dislike for the legal Establishment, as shown by a small sampling:

“Trumped-up complexity, of course, has always been the lifeblood of lawyers.”

“It is obvious, from the moment you walk in, that courthouses aren’t designed for anyone but lawyers.”

“The contingency fee system amounts to little more than a get-rich-quick scheme for lawyers.”

On the other hand, a lot of it rings true, too.

There are some general assumptions and themes that underlie their proposals: inform and educate the public with brochures, standardized forms, and court clerks who are paid to help consumers; use mediation and arbitration in lieu of court hearings whenever possible; and replace slow, inefficient, legalistic court processes with smooth, pro-consumer, quick-acting government agencies.

That last assumption, which is the basis of the proposal to remove divorce and probate from the courthouse and simplify bankruptcy, is certainly open to challenge. What about the bungling unresponsive bureaucracy that so many of us have encountered at various levels of government?

Still, many of the specific proposals could relieve the burden of crowded courts and make law more accessible: expand small claims court limits; allow non-lawyers to staff neighborhood law clinics (even though lawyers might protest that “having a non-lawyer do legal work is akin to hiring a mechanic to do brain surgery”); regulate contingency fees, start public education programs about law in high school or earlier; discipline lawyers more aggressively; and redesign law libraries so that they can be used more easily by the public.

The authors offer their suggestions to “open debate and encourage others to add their voices.” Many of their proposals are controversial, some more debatable than others, but, all in all, they are an excellent starting point to begin the education and reform process.

Klein, an attorney and assistant to the publisher of The Times, cannot answer mail personally but will respond in this column to questions of general interest about the law. Write to Jeffrey S. Klein, Legal View, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.