Without that technology, lawyers had to communicate with clients,
other lawyers, and the courts by snail mail, land line telephones, or
face-to-face. There was no electronic service or filing of documents
and no ability to retrieve statutes or court decisions or a plethora
of forms electronically with a key stroke while sitting in front of a
keyboard in one’s office or on a laptop at home in bed. The good news
is the electronics allow one to work from anywhere there is an internet
connection and be in constant contact with one’s office. The downside
is one is never really free of the workplace or contact from clients or
other lawyers.
Growth in Numbers and Demographic Change
In 1968, there were approximately 300,000 lawyers in the United
States and, in 2018, there are approximately 1.34 million lawyers. In
1968, there were approximately 703 licensed lawyers in North Dakota
and, in 2018, there are 2,924 licensed lawyers and about 1,686 of those
reside in North Dakota.
In 1968, there were few women in law school and consequently there
were few female lawyers or judges in North Dakota or the United
States. In North Dakota, the first female Supreme Court justice was
Beryl Levine, who served from 1985 to 1996, and was then followed
by Mary Maring, Carol Kapsner, and Lisa Fair McEvers. The first
female state district court judge was Cynthia Rothe Seeger in 1975.
In the early 1970s, less than five percent of lawyers and judges were
female and that has changed so that it is now estimated one-third or
more of the lawyers and judges in the United States are female. The
North Dakota Supreme Court started hiring law clerks in 1965, and
Christine Hogan was the first female law clerk and was hired in 1975.
The State Bar Association of North Dakota (SBAND), of which I
was president in 1985-86 and from which I received the association’s
Distinguished Service Award in 2008, was formed in 1899. It was not
until 1996 that Rebecca Thiem was elected the first female president.
However, in the 22 years since her presidency, SBAND has had 10
female presidents.
Advertising
Advertising lawyer services was not allowed until 1977, when the U.S.
Supreme Court in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona invalidated the ban on
advertising on First Amendment grounds. Now TV, internet, radio,
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billboard, phone book, YouTube, and direct mail ads about lawyer
services are found everywhere. Some of these modes of advertisement
are very professional and some are very tacky, and some are very
expensive and some are very inexpensive. Further, most law firms
now have a website which provides all of the relevant information
about their firm and the service they perform.
Litigation Practice
Discovery in the pre-computer age required drafting, dictation, and
typing of interrogatories, requests for production of documents,
and requests for admission of certain facts. These documents then
tended to be very case specific. But today, in the computer age, the
competing litigators often take full advantage of the large volume of
forms they can access on the internet and flood their opponent with
useless and repetitive questions, requests, and objections. This abuse
has thankfully resulted in the courts enacting some rules restricting
the number of questions and requests that can be made, but there still
tends to be abuses which waste time and are costly to a client.
With the internet, there is almost certain to be a request for the
metadata related to any relevant documents involved in the case.
Further, in many personal injury cases, there will certainly be an
investigation of any litigant and any potential witness which will
include a thorough review of any and all social networks where the
party or witness may have done or said something which may be
inconsistent or contrary to their claim in the case. Depositions are
now routinely videotaped and are often used at trial rather than
calling the witness in person.
Jury Trials, Mediation, and Arbitration
The number of cases that are actually tried to a jury are growing
smaller as there is greater interest in resolving cases through a
process of mediation or arbitration. I frankly prefer presenting the
cases to a jury and have, in the nearly 200 jury cases I have tried,
found that nine or 12 persons randomly selected, in the vast majority
of cases, come to a just conclusion. Mediators simply want to cut
the baby in half, collect their fee for the mediation, and go home.
Arbitration processes are, in my experience, not in the best interests
of an individual who is in a dispute with a company over some issue,
which explains why many contracts involving large companies have
mandatory arbitration clauses in them.