I spent a lot of my teens and early twenties dreaming of revolution. I was reading books by Revolutionaries, watching documentaries about the changing of the guard in far off lands and listening to Rage Against the Machine. I was enamored with those what were passionate about instituting a paradigm shift in a society they saw as off the rails. As time passed, I became more accepting of the greater system around me and acknowledged that instead of hurling insults and acting despondent towards society, I needed to be in the game to change the rules.
Subsequently, I worked in schools and on numerous political campaigns to try and create the institutional change I hoped for. Now, here I sit in a nondescript office building in Yerevan and I’ve been told to bring some kind of revolution to the Armenian legal system. This is a long way from my mother’s basement reading Abbey Hoffman at 16.
Last week, I sent an email out to friends and family updating them on my time in Yerevan. Among the immodest bragging I said, “. . . recently I've started working on a redrafting of the legal ethics rules used by practitioners in Armenia. To say the least, it's intimidating to be told, ‘Your recommendations could change the legal ethics code of Armenia.’" What I understood this to mean at the time was that the office was redrafting the Ethics Code, and I would write a memo of about 10 pages on what I thought the Armenian Code of Professional Conduct was missing by looking at the American Model Rules and some other European examples. As I found out today, this was a modest assessment of what was actually expected of me. After years of pining for a “revolution”, I stand at the precipice and I’m unsure of what to do.
Let’s start at the beginning. Armenia has a modest 15-page ethics code for their legal practitioners. It covers a lot of the things you would expect: don’t share your client’s information with other people, file things on time and you can’t defend opposing sides in the same conflict. It also misses a lot of gimmies like: a ban on the purchase of judicial appointments, a rule against sleeping with your clients or most simply an enforcement mechanism if these rules were broken.
I was handed the recent version of the Code, a draft of a new bill that would create an enforcement mechanism and a bunch of nation’s ethics codes. The other codes I received were not from what I would call the “Axis of Ethics.” The collection included such amoral wonders as Russia, Bulgaria and my personal favorite Republika Srpska (one autonomous Serb half of Bosnia Herzegovina). None of these governments are well known for the rule of law or a scrupulous legal community.
After sifting through these documents, I was left with many questions. I hounded my supervisor on this project to answer my concerns. More specifically, we began to discuss why there was no confidentiality owed to a prospective client. In the United States, we offer prospective clients the same confidentiality as we do actual clients. My superior told me it was because some sneakier would-be-defendants will go to attorneys in town to talk with them just long enough so they can’t oppose them in court. Under a system where confidentiality was owed, this prospective client has essentially inoculated himself against a plaintiff hiring the town’s better advocates.
First, I saw this once on a Sopranos episode. Second, I don’t believe this problem is so widespread that it requires a blanket ban on confidentiality for prospective clients. Third—I actually asked this of my superior—, why not have a bad faith exemption for those who would abuse this rule? She chuckled and said, “How would you ever prove that?” “Um, how do you prove anything? A hearing.” I responded.
This wasn’t my only question though, I also wanted to know things like: “Is this as vague as I think it is?” Or, “is this even enforceable?” Or, “why don’t you have this?” The answers to these questions were: “yes”, “haha, no” and finally, “because you haven’t put it in there yet.”
It was at this point that I noticed that my job physically towered somewhere astronomically over my head. My supervising attorney told me she needed my “draft” by the 20th of July for translation. Draft? Translation? I was planning on some thorough legal research, writing up a memo summarizing that research and making a few recommendations with no expectation that they’d ever be read. As it turns out, the office expects me to completely redraft the current Code and will then use it as their draft at the working group meeting in August.
And so “The Tashea Draft” of the Armenian Code of Advocates’ Conduct was born. I now have two weeks to beg professors for help and parse a world’s worth of ethics codes. I’m deleting vague clauses, adding much needed rules and editing language so it has some teeth. All the while, in the back of my head I’m thinking about the salivating legal ethics scholars that wait a career for this opportunity. I don’t for a second forget how lucky I am to be in this position. Undoubtedly, whatever I write and submit will be edited many times and argued over ad nauseum—edit one will surely be getting rid of the title “The Tashea Draft.”
I don’t want my excitement over this project to be seen as ego or arrogance. I use the word “revolution” in its most basic of terms. This is a country whose legal community has no recourse for when the rules are broken. To create a system that enforces the rules blindly would unmistakably be revolutionary. I do not consider myself revolutionary; however, the process which I, the ABA and others are involved in is a sea change not often experienced.
Before coming here, I was criticized by some for taking this job. Some see my position and the American Bar Association’s goal in Armenia as cultural hegemony. I out right reject this position. To have the power to do good and not use it is the only criticism worth making.
Currently, there is little chance for a client to bring a malpractice suit against their attorney, disbarment means a two-year suspension and for the most part confidentiality exists only on paper. No matter what I cut and paste from other model rules or what the ABA ultimately recommends at the end of the day, the argument will take place amongst Armenians, further editing will be done by practicing Armenian attorneys and the final vote to hopefully adopt a stronger ethics code will be done by Armenians and not Americans.
In a world as interconnected as ours and with ideas able to move so fluidly, the last place to put criticism should be on the nationality of the person or group that recommends a positive change. Even if that person got their ideas about revolution in their mother's basement.
Thanks Mom.
Subsequently, I worked in schools and on numerous political campaigns to try and create the institutional change I hoped for. Now, here I sit in a nondescript office building in Yerevan and I’ve been told to bring some kind of revolution to the Armenian legal system. This is a long way from my mother’s basement reading Abbey Hoffman at 16.
Last week, I sent an email out to friends and family updating them on my time in Yerevan. Among the immodest bragging I said, “. . . recently I've started working on a redrafting of the legal ethics rules used by practitioners in Armenia. To say the least, it's intimidating to be told, ‘Your recommendations could change the legal ethics code of Armenia.’" What I understood this to mean at the time was that the office was redrafting the Ethics Code, and I would write a memo of about 10 pages on what I thought the Armenian Code of Professional Conduct was missing by looking at the American Model Rules and some other European examples. As I found out today, this was a modest assessment of what was actually expected of me. After years of pining for a “revolution”, I stand at the precipice and I’m unsure of what to do.
Let’s start at the beginning. Armenia has a modest 15-page ethics code for their legal practitioners. It covers a lot of the things you would expect: don’t share your client’s information with other people, file things on time and you can’t defend opposing sides in the same conflict. It also misses a lot of gimmies like: a ban on the purchase of judicial appointments, a rule against sleeping with your clients or most simply an enforcement mechanism if these rules were broken.
I was handed the recent version of the Code, a draft of a new bill that would create an enforcement mechanism and a bunch of nation’s ethics codes. The other codes I received were not from what I would call the “Axis of Ethics.” The collection included such amoral wonders as Russia, Bulgaria and my personal favorite Republika Srpska (one autonomous Serb half of Bosnia Herzegovina). None of these governments are well known for the rule of law or a scrupulous legal community.
After sifting through these documents, I was left with many questions. I hounded my supervisor on this project to answer my concerns. More specifically, we began to discuss why there was no confidentiality owed to a prospective client. In the United States, we offer prospective clients the same confidentiality as we do actual clients. My superior told me it was because some sneakier would-be-defendants will go to attorneys in town to talk with them just long enough so they can’t oppose them in court. Under a system where confidentiality was owed, this prospective client has essentially inoculated himself against a plaintiff hiring the town’s better advocates.
First, I saw this once on a Sopranos episode. Second, I don’t believe this problem is so widespread that it requires a blanket ban on confidentiality for prospective clients. Third—I actually asked this of my superior—, why not have a bad faith exemption for those who would abuse this rule? She chuckled and said, “How would you ever prove that?” “Um, how do you prove anything? A hearing.” I responded.
This wasn’t my only question though, I also wanted to know things like: “Is this as vague as I think it is?” Or, “is this even enforceable?” Or, “why don’t you have this?” The answers to these questions were: “yes”, “haha, no” and finally, “because you haven’t put it in there yet.”
It was at this point that I noticed that my job physically towered somewhere astronomically over my head. My supervising attorney told me she needed my “draft” by the 20th of July for translation. Draft? Translation? I was planning on some thorough legal research, writing up a memo summarizing that research and making a few recommendations with no expectation that they’d ever be read. As it turns out, the office expects me to completely redraft the current Code and will then use it as their draft at the working group meeting in August.
And so “The Tashea Draft” of the Armenian Code of Advocates’ Conduct was born. I now have two weeks to beg professors for help and parse a world’s worth of ethics codes. I’m deleting vague clauses, adding much needed rules and editing language so it has some teeth. All the while, in the back of my head I’m thinking about the salivating legal ethics scholars that wait a career for this opportunity. I don’t for a second forget how lucky I am to be in this position. Undoubtedly, whatever I write and submit will be edited many times and argued over ad nauseum—edit one will surely be getting rid of the title “The Tashea Draft.”
I don’t want my excitement over this project to be seen as ego or arrogance. I use the word “revolution” in its most basic of terms. This is a country whose legal community has no recourse for when the rules are broken. To create a system that enforces the rules blindly would unmistakably be revolutionary. I do not consider myself revolutionary; however, the process which I, the ABA and others are involved in is a sea change not often experienced.
Before coming here, I was criticized by some for taking this job. Some see my position and the American Bar Association’s goal in Armenia as cultural hegemony. I out right reject this position. To have the power to do good and not use it is the only criticism worth making.
Currently, there is little chance for a client to bring a malpractice suit against their attorney, disbarment means a two-year suspension and for the most part confidentiality exists only on paper. No matter what I cut and paste from other model rules or what the ABA ultimately recommends at the end of the day, the argument will take place amongst Armenians, further editing will be done by practicing Armenian attorneys and the final vote to hopefully adopt a stronger ethics code will be done by Armenians and not Americans.
In a world as interconnected as ours and with ideas able to move so fluidly, the last place to put criticism should be on the nationality of the person or group that recommends a positive change. Even if that person got their ideas about revolution in their mother's basement.
Thanks Mom.
