POST Modern JURISPRUDENCE

Well I started thinking about post modern jurisprudence ... and what could be further done to the legal system to water it down a bit more ...

I did an LLB law degree in England and the core subjects are

Constitutional Public Law
Law of obligations / Contract
Legal Systems and Legal Methods
Tort
Crime
Property
Equity & Trusts
Jurisprudence
Employment
Environment
EC Law
Corporate
Dissertation (in my case Jurisprudence) - I recommend everyone does one
and I also worked for law firms that do

Family law
Intellectual Property
Construction law
Patent law
International law

and there are other topics such as

Human Rights law

But all fit within the 12 core topics above.

What if ... law firms had to be one of 12 core topics, for example

Corporate law firms - with specialisms in corporate, finance, investment, tax, intellectual property, patent law

Equity & Trusts -family, pensions, probate, inheritance - Executory or Inter vivos settlements, child laws

Property - conveyancing domestic and commercial, construction domestic and commercial

Legal Systems and Legal Methods - arbitration, litigation, ADR and legal drafting of social policy process, contempt of court, obstruction of the course of justice, perversion of the course of justice

Environment law - air, sea, land, water, trees, transport, nuisance, contamination

Contract - general or specialised

Tort - personal injury, mental health/health, professional negligence, defamation, slander, libel

Crime - attempt, conspiracy, full crime either statute or common law, private prosecution, contempt, obstruction, perversion and/or article 6 HRA 1998

Constitutional - public law, Councils, Police, Judiciary etc

EC Law - direct and indirect legal issues, horizontal effect, parliament, council, commission and European Court

Jurisprudence - ethics, human rights, social policy and codification, miscarriages of justice, ethics and standards of reasonableness, future direction of law and overseer of litigation, arbitration and ADR, European law and international law, monitoring and evaluation

etc, etc

At the moment, crime is largely defence work, but private prosecutions can also happen. Patent lawyers tend to be just that. But what if the very big large firms could only specialise in one core topic area and all law firms could only deal with one core topic area. This perhaps would cause greater regulation and independence as more than one firm may be involved in a transaction, eg intellectual property and litigation rather than one firm doing all the work within different departments, two firms each monitoring and evaluating the other's conduct professionally. It could mean larger firms working with small firms. Where one firm is working it could mean that department makeup is more relevant to the core business of the firm, so no need to have a property department if dealing with corporate work.

With databasing much of the pro forma or standard contract work which is done by paralegals would mean that "reiteration" type work could drop down to call centre type law firms. Whilst there would still be niche work, most client work would be generalised as it is nowadays anyway.

Getting rid of the "9 to 5" business time frame could mean people work from home, from internet cafe's or from the client's own office or home etc at more convenient times, including weekends, bringing a much needed "life/work/balance" to the corporate world.

Law degrees could be downgraded too:

(a) legal systems and legal methods,
(b) jurisprudence, and
(c) one core topic.
(d) the legal professional training could also be incorporated with a placement

In Scotland paralegals can qualify in one core topic, ie property or litigation, etc. Most lawyers once qualified - which requires a professional training course plus a 4 seats in core topics, tend to work for the remainder of their careers in one core topic which may or may not be one of their chosen core topic seats. So why waste all that time studying ... for an area you are never going to practise in!

With databasing salary levels could drop, and more complicated transactions would no longer be as complex - only the niche specialisms would attract higher salaries and that presumably would mean "challenging" legal work.

If a law firm could only practise in one of 12 core topic areas, then there would be greater competition and choice for the punter with innovative service.

One area that needs improvement is Jurisprudence - this appears to be only an academic topic. It should be possible to leave a university or college and find a job in Jurisprudence, either in Government or the Judiciary or other. I wait in hope ... my blog would suggest that there is a need for a form of employment under this head: the science and theory of human law (science requires certainty which is why it is different from philosophy).

Also, for those who are sceptical, bear in mind that legal secretaries do not specialise in any one area and can go from topic to topic and learn the skills inherent to each topic, what forms are needed, when in the transaction, how to complete them - all secretaries over time "know" what the end product looks like - they might not know how to get there, but they do "know" the standard that is to be reached within the context of the documentation. It's only a short hop, skip and jump on a learning curve ... if secretaries can do reiteration work, so also can all lawyers ... eg in conveyancing in Scotland there are 28 processes to buying and selling property - its one book with a contents page and an index page - not so difficult really when you look at issues practically in relation to tutoring/lecturing/practice.

Or the legal profession could be like hairdressing - self-employed and you rent your chair!
Modernity - Post Modernity should we be going there ...

Here is an issue using information I know about:

In the Highlands, social housing has an 11,000 waiting list for a council house. Private rental property advertises "No DSS, No pets, No smokers" and landlords put their rental for 1, 2, 3 bedroom properties just above the threshold for housing benefit, a 1 bedroom flat can only attract £98 per week from housing benefit so the Landlord puts it on the market at £450 so that he does not attract DSS. This should be contrary to social inclusion policy, anti-poverty policy, equality and diversity policy, financial inclusion policy areas of concern by local and national government. However, landlords and estate agents in the area are getting away with it.

Also in Lothian region there is a lot of empty new-build commercial property. How would this all be dealt with.

There are possible solutions, eg ex Council commercial property changed into council residential property. Attract commercial interests into empty new build commercial property the law could be changed to put back old commercial property to domestic residential use in town centres and thereby alleviate the social housing problems at the lower end of the market. In Scotland I believe all domestic rental property has to be registered, at least it does in Lothian, therefore ex-commercial property in town centres ie vacant property above shops and in residential streets could easily be brought up to standard for domestic use.

How would you go about it? I would think at least you would need to look at the whole social policy of domestic and commercial property letting. This would need a fission between politics and law. You would need to look at legal systems and legal methods concerning procedure and drafting. You would need to look at codification of what laws already exist which can go back to the 19th century and the last codification exercise. You might have to create law via the legislature to meet the requirements of the 21st Century. Who is going to do all this work, where is the synergy between topics, where do the public fit in with the synergy and goals to be achieved ... the fact that 11,000 people are on a waiting list means you do need to do something about social housing. The fact that there is a lot of empty new-build commercial property means there is a need for stimuli in the property market ... the fact that there is obvious discrimination occurring within domestic property use and contrary to existing government driven social policy within the boundaries to be addressed, ie anti-poverty ...

It would be interesting to see how the above would be dealt with, what ideas and creativity could be done to process a social disadvantage which is not compliant with core government policy initiatives ... law reaches into every aspect of society ... but governments all focus on their manifesto and if its not in the manifesto it can get lost to the ether and you then have 11,000 strong waiting lists and empty commercial property - who does the job of engaging society ? Part of the issue is actually recognising the problem in the first place and engaging to find a solution? Concerning the Highlands, the issue is actually discrimination / stigmatisation of people on state benefits - in a recession I would have thought that Landlords would find state housed people attractive as all a landlord should want is the benefit of his rent being paid regularly - apparently not - so why the stigma / discrimination? What are the further issues?