Last month, I was honoured to move the admission of a graduate lawyer to the profession and, in turn, found myself before the Supreme Court of South Australia, specifically The Honourable Chief Justice Chris Kourakis. I expected a procedural ceremony for the applicant’s admission.
These ceremonies always feel significant and impactful as they are; however, I was not expecting such a moving and inspirational opening address by His Honour. The points His Honour raised were not radical to me but instead affirming of a change in the tide.
His Honour spoke of responsible lawyering and what each prospective solicitor ought to understand about the duty they had in entering the profession.
The duty to the Court is seen in how a legal professional acts with honesty and integrity. This is often considered the minimum standard a lawyer is held to.
His Honour then spoke of a duty to one’s client. As I sat and listened to His Honour’s examples, I couldn’t help but reflect on how my business journey was built solely around this point and how radical that felt at the time. To me, it always felt like our duty to practice “responsible lawyering” by having an unwavering vision to deliver a client centric experience in our delivery of legal services. However, it perplexed me that that was not a sentiment many of my fellow practitioners shared.
So, it was refreshing and exciting to hear His Honour highlight this duty to the new applicants as they start their legal journey. It is encouraging to know that this sentiment will be part of the new generation of lawyers and perhaps, the tide will change with it.
I will paraphrase His Honour and highlight the parallels in how Resolve Divorce upholds these duties in the way we practice the law responsibly:
- Be gone with legalese – It’s not quite how His Honour worded it, but the sentiment is the same. Legal correspondence is not the time to fuel your ego with how sophisticated of a writing style you can manage. A lawyer’s correspondence, whether verbal or written, usually comes at a significant cost for the client. Therefore, it is the lawyer’s duty to ensure all correspondence can be appropriately absorbed and understood by the client.
At Resolve, we take the ego and complexities of the law out and talk to our clients in a human way. We have undone generations of bad habits and unnecessarily complicated writing styles, and trained our legal team to write in plain English, address our clients by their real names, talk to them like real people and treat them with respect.
- Respect your elders, and in turn, respect your juniors – The advice was for the new graduates to lean on the guidance of those who came before them. This is both crucial to their development and ensures they provide a quality service. A lawyer should never be afraid to admit they do not know the answer, and they should never be afraid to lean on the support of those more experienced for guidance. Moreover, there is a duty for experienced practitioners to offer this mentorship to those new to the profession.
Having two lawyers on each file at Resolve means we live and breathe this advice day in day out. We know two brains are better than one, always. This means our clients are well supported, as there is always someone around who is across their file. It also means our juniors always have someone to lean on for mentorship and guidance.
- Practice with care – His Honour was clear on why one should enter the profession. Not for an ego boost, or because that’s what your parents did, but because we feel a burning desire to uphold our law and serve our community. Our country is established in a way that means our judiciary, and in turn legal professionals, bear a heavy burden on their shoulders. They fill a gap in applying the laws written in a way that we believe is indicative of their intention and is representative of community values.
This service to the community isn’t often discussed in legal circles, yet at Resolve, this is front of mind in all that we do. We understand that our duty to the client extends further than their interests alone, but to their families, their children, and their wider communities. One bad divorce can rock a community. Yet, when divorce is handled with care, we have the power to turn these relationship transitions into positive beginnings and have the benefit of this experience for generations to come.
I wish to thank His Honour for his encouraging words, not as a tap on the shoulder for how we already practice, instead, I wish to thank him for giving me and many other professionals within the room confidence that the tide is changing.
Responsible lawyering will no longer be for the rare few in the profession, but with every wave of admissions, it will become the set standard, to our courts, clients, and communities’ benefit.
By Rose Cocchiaro