The Trouble With Lawyers

The National Education already own network presents a law in the news with Professor

Joseph R. Julan associate dean of the University of Michigan Law School

Simon and Schuster has recently published a book authored by Marie tide bloom.

The title The trouble with lawyers. A recent review of that

book and I perhaps should immediately suggest the source of

the review is a review by a lawyer printed in the Chicago Bar

Association legal journal. A recent review of that book begins as

follows. Mary Ty Bloom a non-lawyer freelance professional

writer but only proclaims at the outset that he intends to show how the

American middle class is victimized by the American legal profession.

He then proceeds to update old material and piece together a rerun of his old magazine

articles sorted out under chapter headings to make it appear he has written a book.

Now whenever I see a review of such a book whenever I see a les

authored article How to avoid probate of the like it brings

to mind a colleague of mine Richard Wellman Professor Wellman for a number of years

has been developing together with others a new uniform

probate code. Recently in the National Observer there was a headline lawyers

designing the code to speed probate a Will Dick Wellman is with me now

and I'd like to simply put the question Dick. When is your new

law going to affect the man on the street.

A great deal will depend upon how badly the man in the street wants this law

to be in effect and how much he can communicate to his

state legislature tors his sense of urgency and of desire

for this new law. Our drafts should be approved by the

national organization hopefully this July. But after that has occurred

it depends upon the political machinery in each of the states.

And as to how quickly that can be mobilized to support this and to get it

into an act meant before I can relate tell you. When it all hit the

man in the street.

The man on the street in this sense really doesn't have much of a lobby but there is an

organization which we're all aware the American Bar Association there are

other organizations of lawyers are these organizations prepared to lobby for your

reform.

I think the answer to that is that they are becoming

prepared to lobby for it I would not say that any organization has yet gone on

record as firmly in favor of this one of the problems is that this

code is over 300 pages of fairly intricate

provisions and the lawyers as is their custom in their training want to know what it

is they're supporting before they would support it. And it takes a lot of time to

get the information of the detail and of the

implications of the detail across two organizations. But the lawyer

organizations that have looked at this carefully and their spokesman who are

reflective I think of the wider opinion once it's triggered have indicated support for

this. If you had 45 seconds what would you tell a layman about this code so that he would

support it. Though I would say to him that this code would make it

possible in the long run for him to cease worrying about probate.

This code is designed to tell the average person that his

estate will pass at death by the law as well as he could arrange

to have it passed by will or by will substitute and that there would be no

cost delay or other unfairness or

outrageous interference with the passage of that property at his death. I

think this is a cause worth supporting.

Is it likely that the layman if the POWs drafted

supported by the Commissioners on uniform state laws is enacted. Is it likely that the

layman won't have to have a will anymore.

Well if he wants to call himself average and if he is truly average the answer is he needn't have a

will. It's freely available to him however to make a will and a great number of people

still will have reasons for wills.

I take it you would add one caveat. The one individual who can

advise an individual as to whether he needs or does not need a will now or under any

uniform law as your counsellor.

This is right you need someone with the kind of broad information and technical information that a

lawyer has to answer that question.

I've been talking with Professor Richard Wellman of the University of Michigan Law School

Professor Joseph R. Julan associate dean of the University of Michigan Law School

as represented law in the news recorded by the University of Michigan

Broadcasting Service. This is the national educational radio

network.