Lack of faith in legal profession proves where there’s a bill there’s a way
My friend Brian Purdy is a colourful, larger-than-life individual who made his name across our country as a crusading defence lawyer and an equally determined prosecutor.
In quiet cocktail lounges where lawyers get together it’s whispered no one successfully prosecuted and won more big drug and tax-evasion cases—particularly of the ‘proceeds from crime’ type—than did this fabled QC lawyer.
Purdy guesses he has acted for the defence or Crown in some 60 jury trials, mainly for murder, rape or major narcotics offences, losing only two.
Quite something by any measure.
My own guess is you don’t want to get on the wrong side of this big, affable man, which I pointedly never have, because if you did, he might not be so affable.
Now, Brian throws these great get-togethers with a mix of eclectic people, mainly decent, hard-working and visionary right-wingers such as myself, but now and again the occasional lib-left termite sneaks in.
Perhaps they come to see the horse tethered up in his back garden during Stampede time.
Purdy knows I’m greatly interested in the law and the judiciary, having been the only western journalist allowed into dictator Josef Tito’s Yugoslavia to cover a charade of a war crimes trial in which the three judges were members of the Communist party, and the prosecutor got to decide what witnesses the defence lawyer could call.
And we shake our heads at our system on occasion!
At one of Brian’s recent shindigs I was telling our former police chief—and newly minted lawyer—Christine Silverberg that she had to watch three top-notch movies that show what the legal profession really should be like: Orson Welles’ Compulsion (1959), Spencer Tracy’s Inherit the Wind (1960), and Gregory Peck’s To Kill to Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
Boy, are they inspirational!
I often tell Brian that, when I was a kid, if you were a lawyer you were respected by everyone, but today most people figure lawyers are just a bunch of shysters out to make quick buck.
I liked it much better when they were respected. Back then, the ‘lawyer’ TV shows of the day reflected the respected legal profession of the day as in Perry Mason, while now we have shows like Boston Legal, in which the lawyers sit around discussing how they can soak their clients for a stack more money, and jump in and out of bed with each other.
So, I ask, Purdy—and someone should make a movie about him, and bring back some respect and reality to the profession—what happened?
He replies in two words, which initially I think are one word, some Latin jargon from the profession, but, no, he zeroes straight in on “Billable hours.”
Yes, you likely have heard that term yourself.
Says Brian, “Billable hours. That’s what drives the profession. But ‘billable hours’ has actually turned the profession into a trade rather than a profession.”
At one time, he explains, when you went to a lawyer he quoted you a flat fee for whatever service you needed be it a divorce or a defence case. Now there’s no quote.
“Today, it’s so much an hour. That means there is a regrettable incentive for lawyers to ‘churn’ files and start writing unnecessary letters and so on.”
Brian recognizes some law society isn’t about to like what he’s saying, but I contend what this absolutely fine member of the profession is saying is far more important than what some irate nitpickers might think, so I nudge him to stick to his vein of thought.
A lot of lawyers know they no longer have society’s respect but don’t care.
Lawyers in large firms are driven to bill for a certain number of hours—a great whacking number—and if profit rather than public service is no longer the strong facet it was, it certainly seems that way to many people.
Actually, says Brian, there is still a strong public service attitude in some law firms and with some lawyers who still act ‘pro bono’ on a number of cases: “The public service facet hasn’t entirely disappeared, but it’s been reduced.”
On the positive side, some ‘lifestyle lawyers’ are now opting out of the profit-driven legal world and starting up small ‘boutique’ firms where they can work the hours they want to work and take the cases they want to take.
Well, those are the kind of lawyers some of us still remember, and still respect.
As for Brian, “I retired when I was still respected,” he says, and all who know Purdy can second that.
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