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Lawyers and Localities: The Interaction of Community Context and Professionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Donald D. Landon
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Abstract

Most studies of the legal profession, done in metropolitan settings, have indicated that the profession is characterized by deep divisions associated with varying practice patterns, professional status, and orientation. But the sources of division within the bar include more than the specialization and stratification that are typical of the bar in metropolitan settings. Community context also appears to be a source of division. It determines not only the character of a lawyer's cases and clients but also the manner in which practice is conducted. This comparison of practice patterns in Missouri of rural lawyers with those in a middle-sized city (Springfield) revealed that while the small town context protects the bar from the centrifugal forces of stratification found in larger settings, it also has elements that challenge the professional independence of the practitioner. The small town or rural practitioner is very much a part of the local life, and thus local opinion and values have a salience for practice patterns not typical of larger settings. In addition, these rural lawyers are less likely to be engaged exclusively in law practice.

Overall, the data suggest that the legal profession is divided not only by specialization and its attendant internal stratification but also by the size and character of the local context. In contrast to the view that the profession is a homogeneous professional subculture, we found that the bar may better be thought of as a rather loose-knit group with tenuous collegial ties whose professionalism is under constant challenge from the community in which law practice occurs.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Bar Foundation Research Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Spring 1982 , pp. 459 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1982 

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References

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11 For exceptions to this trend see Joel F. Handler, The Lawyer and His Community: The Practicing Bar in a Middle-sized City (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), and Donald D. Landon, The Legal Profession and the Local Community: A Comparative Study of Community Context and the Delivery of Legal Services (Jefferson City: Missouri Bar Foundation, 1977).Google Scholar

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21 The Springfield respondents were 78 percent Protestant and 7 percent Catholic in a community that is 72 percent Protestant and 6 percent Catholic. The rural respondents were largely (72 percent) Protestant, reflecting the rural religious orientation in Missouri. The majority of both sets of respondents were inclined to identify themselves as Republicans, again reflecting the dominant political orientation of each area.Google Scholar

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27 Of course the opposite may also be true. There may be a sufficiently strong congruence between the moral perspective of the community and that of the attorney that he unconsciously implements community perspectives in his work. As Pollitt, supra note 18, has observed, the lawyer may well operate as a “captive of the community's values.” Rather than responding to pressure, the attorney may be implementing deeply internalized preferences.Google Scholar

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31 F. Stuart Chapin, Experimental Designs in Sociological Research 275–78 app. B (rev. ed. New York: Harper & Bros., 1955).Google Scholar

32 Obviously, the data here are not conclusive. We would need data indicating how other professional groups score on the Dye scale before we could safely conclude that there is a built-in local orientation in the bar as our preliminary data suggest.Google Scholar

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34 It should be noted that the median income figures for the rural and urban group are affected by the relatively high incidence of new young firm associates being hired in the urban setting at salaries often under $10,000 (1976). Nearly all the 21 lawyers from the urban setting with incomes under $15,000 were young firm associates. Because this type of firm practice is less typical of rural settings, there are fewer low-salaried associates. Also, both urban and rural groups show income to be significantly related to number of years in practice. The rural bar is a significantly “older” bar. Twenty-two percent had been in practice 25 years or more compared with 13 percent in the urban sample. Each bar had a considerable proportion of young lawyers, however: 44.6 percent had been in practice less than 10 years in the rural sample compared with 56 percent in the urban sample.Google Scholar

35 As opposed to metropolitan firm specialists, who typically serve highly specialized interests and thus a restricted clientele.Google Scholar

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40 The scale measured participation in ABA, the Missouri Bar, county bar associations, and “other” in four types of activity: membership = 1; section membership =2; committee responsibility = 3; office = 4. The highest level of participation in each association was summed together to establish a score that could range from 1 to 16. We arbitrarily set 0–3 as low, 4–7 as moderate, and 8 or above as high.Google Scholar

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44 Additional data suggest that contrary to the metropolitan bar, which is rigidly stratified by income, practice type, clientele, and professional prestige, the rural bar shows little evidence of such stratification. Cf. Handler, supra note 11.Google Scholar