The Gazette 1987

GAZETTE

SEP TE MBER 1987

Role and Function of the Lawyer in the Modern World

This article is intended to examine in general terms the role of the lawyer from his original function to that which is prevalent today. There is a crisis in the law in the sense that there is doubt and uncertainty about the future path that lawyers should take and hence the rules that should govern the profession. Lawyers are, by nature, intensely conservative and reactionary save for the few who like to shock and would espouse any cause that was radical, extrovert or eccentric. When doubt arises in any field it is best to return to basic fundamentals and accordingly it is worthwhile examining the original reasons for the calling or profession of lawyers.

this led to the building of empires depending for their structure upon geographical boundaries rather than those set by race or religion. The First Literacy The pace of development was acc- elerated by communication through the written word, however simple may have been the original hieroglyphs. There can be little doubt of the power of the written word, as distinct from the spoken word. A document, however sim- ple, was a data bank in its own right and those persons, through literacy, who could retrieve from it and could communicate its con- tents to each other had an advan- tage over those who were illiterate.

tled place relying for its existence upon agriculture. It was not long

There have been lawyers in ex- istence since the world began (although by tradition theirs is not the oldest profession!). As soon as human beings began living to- gether in any kind of community'it became necessary to formulate rules for governing that com- munity, in order to make it thrive and develop its economy and cul- ture for the sake of its existence both in present and future genera- tions. Lawyers were necessary to assist in the making of laws and in their interpretation and to assist the administration of justice for the in- dividual according to the particular ethos to which a community found itself by choice or circumstance governed. Laws would vary in their complexity depending upon whether the community was small and simple with few wants or whether it was part of the sophisticated civilisations of the middle and far east. It was, from these two cradles of civilisation that culture spread to the rest of the Mediterranean, to North West Europe and the New World. Perhaps the continent of Africa, as a whole, stayed isolated in its own culture. Structure of Society Briefly, communities were original- ly nomadic, continual movement being necessary to find food for families and livestock. As the com- munity grew in size and increased in knowledge it remained in a set-

by DAVID BIART

Lately Senior Partner, Thomas Eggar & Son, Chichester, England*

before the inquisitive and ac- quisitive nature of the human species could only be satisfied by The Second Literacy The impact of printing dramatical- ly increased the number of literate trade between centres. Inevitably persons and speeded the whole

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