The Gazette 1964/67

suffers a hurt or a loss, someone else is expected to pay and the first reaction of the man-in-the- street today is 'Whom do I sue?' This has meant a change in the public approach to the law. a more critical attitude towards the profession and, at the same time, a growing inclination to make use of the legal services, themselves made more readily available by the legal aid and advice schemes, by those who previously might have felt unable to afford the risk of bringing their cases before the courts. Contemporaneously, there has developed a disinclination by the public to pay for professional services. If medical services are provided free for all, why should not legal, ac countancy, surveying and other professional ser vices be provided free—or, if not free, at a much lower cost? The labourer may be worthy of his hire, but not the progessional labourer! Within the profession itself significant changes have taken place. New professions have sprung up, which encroach upon the work previously regarded as being within the exclusive domain of the lawyer. Full employment has led to an acute shortage of recruits in legal offices, whether or not holding legal qualifications. Pressure of work and the continual demand for speed have been followed by a degree of mechanisation and special isation by solicitors which has resulted in a general increase in the number of partners in legal firms. Members of the profession themselves are much more aware today than ever before of the need to supply an efficient legal service. There is a continually growing demand for 'continuing education' by lecturers, films, pamphlets and so on and a consciousness of a collective professional duty to the public which, for example has been manifested in many countries by the acceptance of the responsibility to make good losses caused through dishonesty and of the obligation to ad minister legal aid and advice schemes. A further respect in which the outlook of the profession has changed since the war years is in relation to the part which it should play in the field of law reform. No one is as well qualified as the practising lawyer to know the respects in which the law needs reforming, not only because of his detailed knowledge of it, but because of his practical experience of its effects upon the public and of their reactions to it. A postwar development within the profession has been its willingness to incur considerable expenditure of time and money upon law reform measures and the undertaking of research in this field. In yet another way the profession has moved with the times. Partly, no doubt, because of ill- informed attacks which have been made upon

legal procedures and partly because public interest in the law seems to be second only to interest in medicine, lawyers, despite their traditionally conservative approach, have accepted the inevit able need for public relations and made use ol modern techniques. Long-standing rulings, for instance, on the propriety of 'advertising' have been interpreted broadly so as to admit in the professional interest of the use of such media as television and radio, in order to lay before the public the services which are available to them and the reasons why criticised procedures have to be retained. Finally, as regards 'fusion' or 'no fusion' of the profession, a subject raised repeatedly and discussed at the first of the Commonwealth Law Conferences held in London in 1955, there ap pear at the present time to be indications that some members of the Bar and some solicitors are in favour of it, but the demand does not appear to be sufficient to make it likely that the generally accepted view that two separate branches provide a better legal service, if they can be supported economically, will be reversed within the fore seeable future. Changes may no doubt take place in the respective functions of the two branches of the profession, but it seems to be highly desirable that there should be a separate branch of the profession to which the lawyer in general practice and particularly the sole practitioner can turn for specialist advice and assistance. Some Trends Bearing all these and other factors in mind it seems probable, looking ahead, that litigation as a whole will tend to increase in the field of common law and crime but to decrease in Chan cery matters and that there will be a tendency for the courts themselves to specialise; for ex ample, special 'traffic courts' may be estabilshed. In the courts of criminal jurisdiction there may be a tendency, as in civil cases, to dispense with a jury, except in certain types of case, or at least substantially to reduce the size of the jury. Lawyers and the courts alike are acquiring a better knowledge of the forensic sciences, so that full use may be made of scientific evidence and proper weight be given to the views of medical and scientific witnesses. New scientific discoveries, particularly in the period immediately after the experimental stage, may well lead to new causes of action and, unless and until strong remedial steps are taken in con nection with the use of the motor car or there is substantial unemployment or a general fall in the national wealth, the number of motor cars in 121