Vanishing trials, emerging lawyers

IT'S TOO BAD that you framed the phenomenon of the so-called vanishing trial as a problem and not a positive ("Few chances for lawyers to develop trial skills," Page A1, Nov. 29).

There's evidence to demonstrate that the decrease in trials is due to better case management practices by the courts, combined with the fact that so many courts now offer an array of dispute resolution mechanisms, such as mediation, which encourage the early and mutually satisfactory settlement of disputes. If fewer cases go to trial for these reasons, then our overburdened courts and litigants all benefit.

The article also unwittingly perpetuates the myth that television delivers to us daily that all attorneys do is litigate. While trial skills continue to be taught in law schools and are part of any attorney's tool kit, these are not the only skills that our profession calls upon or that attorneys develop or law schools teach. The most important roles attorneys serve are as advisers, negotiators, problem solvers, and even healers of conflict. If fewer cases are going to trial, then it may simply mean that attorneys are doing their job in fulfilling these other roles.

DIANE J. LEVIN
Marblehead
The writer is an attorney-mediator.

WHILE I'M sure most of your readership sees -- as they should -- a reduction in the number of court trials and a rise in settlements as a positive sign, your article misses a potential cause. In fact it treats the cause as an effect. You say there aren't enough trials to allow new lawyers to learn necessary trial skills. Perhaps it's the lack of trial-skills training that keeps new lawyers from being ready to fully represent clients.

The old model had law schools teaching the law and legal employers then training lawyers. Unfortunately, the employers, for the most part, can no longer afford to keep their end of the bargain, and the American Bar Association, which has been studying and calling attention to the problem for decades, has kept law schools such as the one at which I teach from effectively and affordably addressing it.

The price of training law students in trial and other litigation skills at prices they can afford, which is what we as an institution do, is to forgo the ABA imprimatur of "quality." Ironic, isn't it?

ANDREJ THOMAS STARKIS
Andover
The writer is assistant professor at Massachusetts School of Law.