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Thanks to McCarter & English, Wilson Elser and Busch & Busch for hosting and all of the lawyers, judges and client-personnel who attended a ”cast party” for the Owens-Illinois case (O-I) at Stage Left in New Brunswick last Friday evening.  The party celebrated the 23 years since the filing of an important and hard-fought asbestos insurance and reinsurance case. 

The case is concluded, but its spirit lives.  If that spirit could be bottled, the entire Bar should be offered at least a sip.  (In fact, if you’re in New Brunswick this week, take a peek in the window of the restaurant.  There may still be some stragglers in there!) 

O-I was a rigorous a litigation work-out.  It involved a lot of money, novel and contentious issues, and a group of lawyers and judges with skill levels  approaching their egos.  Great fun. 

What all enjoyed Friday evening was the affection, respect and camaraderie resulting from having worked hard together on something special.  Former adversaries and allies, some of whom haven’t seen each other in years, ate, drank, joked and told fibs with the same vigor that we once litigated.    People flew in from around the country and joined the fun.  

Recently, I suggested in this space that lawyers getting together and partying might be as beneficial a pathway for New Jersey’s Mandatory CLE program as any alternative under consideration.  I now wish to formalize that suggestion for consideration by the Committee.  Without doubt, Friday’s event was among the most useful CLEs I have been to, right up there with having had the opportunity to do my job alongside this talented and personable group of lawyers, judges and clients.        

I was recently asked by the Chair of the Dispute Resolution Section of the New Jersey Bar Association section to comment on New Jersey’s Mandatory Continuing Legal Education program. Here goes….

From what I read, it seems a fait accompli that the Supreme Court of New Jersey will require more rigorous MCLE. In the absence of clear metrics defining the specific problems we are trying to address, what our goals in addressing them are, and how we might measure success and failure (and the cost of same), I suggest the Court refrain from significant changes. Let’s fix what’s broke, if anything, once we know what it is, and how we would know success if we were to achieve it. In my view, it would not reflect a failure on the part of the Committee if its recommendation, upon reflection, were to be to continue to study with a focused effort on the “what’s broke” question.

As a licensed attorney in this State for 22 years I have appreciated NJ’s decision to go a path different than many neighboring states as a breath of fresh air. It implied a grown-up trust in the Bar to do what’s required to deliver ethical high-quality service synonymous with New Jersey’s legal tradition. In the past, when consideration of more stringent CLE requirements has periodically come up, my experience, albeit anecdotal, was nearly universal that the lawyers I most respected for their energy, judgment, and ethical character felt that such requirements were, at best, unnecessary, and, at worst, ill-advised or absurd. I cannot think of an instance in which a practicing lawyer I respect greatly based on his or her work privately expressed enthusiasm for greater CLE requirements, and those people in general give freely of their time to legal reform and charitable causes.

I admit to being instinctively uncomfortable with schemes with obvious feel -good effect, but which, upon reflection, offer little in the way of measurements of results against which to perform a cost-benefit analysis and I tend to see this as one of those. I have never heard, for example, how the quality of lawyering anywhere has been shown to have demonstrably increased because of mandatory CLE. Do the malpractice carriers have statistically-sound data correlating claims with the rigor of their CLE programs? (more…)