The
ABA Journal recently shared the story of a Maine practitioner who appeared to give every excuse under the book except "The Dog Ate My Brief" for the inferior quality of his filings. The attorney blamed "destroyed computer files" for errors in a first brief against a self-represented litigant, including inaccurate and misleading citations to the record. He was given two weeks to file an amended brief. After doing so, the court felt that the amended brief still contained numerous errors and rejected it. The attorney sought reconsideration, blaming "the pressures of solo practice" for errors in the second brief and noted that the nub of the appeal presented itself “like a ray of sun light” that “perhaps blinded counsel temporarily to other shortcomings in his work product.” Not surprisingly, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was not persuaded or amused.
While many people use the terms "responsibility" and "accountability" interchangeably, the words can sometimes mean different things. Responsibility has two main components: functional and moral. Generally, the functional aspect of responsibility comprises those functional duties and obligations associated with one's job, like taking a deposition or drafting a memo. The moral aspect of responsibility is comprised of duties and responsibilities like "don't lie to the court" and "don't steal your client's money."
Accountability, on the other hand, is the requirement to step up to the plate and be held, well, "accountable" to a relevant person for your judgments, intention, acts and omissions. Someone can, under many circumstances, be held accountable for an action if he/she is functionally and/or morally responsible for an action and some consequence resulted from that action. Of course, the law is filled with exceptions to this general premise, such as Good Samaritans laws or Whistleblowers Acts designed to encourage people to do the right thing without fearing the consequences of their actions. Over the past few months, the Internet has exploded over stories of people who the general public apparently felt failed to be "properly" accountable for their actions, including a lion-killing dentist and a Kentucky marriage license clerk. However, what the majority of online commenters failed to recognize is that the dentist and clerk have no duty to them and are therefore not accountable to them.
New Hampshire, like other states, has Rules of Professional Responsibility which delineate an attorney's duties and responsibilities and hold an attorney accountable for any violations. While it may seem to non-attorneys that the Rules are just secular versions of the Ten Commandments, the Bar's Rules also address other issues such as how to handle conflicts of interest, advertising, and changing firms. While violation of the Rules isn't necessarily a mortal sin, it can still have serious consequences. New Hampshire's Professional Conduct Committee looks into allegations of attorney misconduct. If an attorney is found to have violated the Rules, consequences can be as serious as such as suspension or disbarment. (Depending on the nature of the offense, a lawyer could also be jailed or sent to prison.)
In law school, my classmates and I were trained about both professional responsibility/accountability and personal accountability. We were encouraged to develop and follow our own moral compasses, even when it was difficult. We were given hypothetical examples in which the requirements of law didn't exactly mesh with our personal believe systems. We were challenged to consider under which circumstances what we might be willing to go to jail or lose a career to do what we thought was the "right" thing. As we all came from different walks of life, it was interesting to hear the responses (and the justifications for particular courses of action). I was also very lucky that the first firm I worked at following law school was made up of lawyers and staff who held themselves to superior moral standards, so a high level of accountability was ingrained in me from the very start of my legal career. For that, I remain grateful.
While I may be surprised and disappointed that the Maine attorney's lack of accountability for his actions made lawyers -- solo practitioners in particular -- look bad, he has no duty or responsibility to me in particular for his actions, statements, or the quality of his pleadings. When I try to comport myself in a manner befitting a Daniel Webster Scholar or NHBar Leadership Academy graduate, I do so because it's important to me not to let my mentors down, not because some external force is making me do so.
