Lawyers, Counselors, and Counselors at Law

Most lawyers often act as counselors. Prof. Harrop Freeman\u27s survey, Counseling in the United States (1967), suggests that some lawyers spend as much as 80 per cent of their professional time in what they classify as counseling-talking with clients on subject matters that do not result in documents, lawsuits, or negotiations with third persons. The average lawyer spends about a third of his time in counseling. As the nature of the profession changes under various no, fault reforms in traditional fields of litigation, lawyers of the 1980s probably will spend even more of their professional time in counseling. This professional activity is probably already the largest consumer of a lawyer\u27s time; it clearly will become even larger in the next five years. So counselors at law have two agenda in this modem climate. One goal is to establish an appreciation of counselors that lawyers thoroughly accord physicians and that most lawyers accord some insurance men. This aim may be in part in the interests of peace, but a more important reason is the welfare of clients. There are areas in which psychologists, marriage counselors., and social workers can do our clients more good than, we can. We need to learn how to recognize these areas, how to respect the competence of other counselors, how to refer a client to them with ease and with some assurance that the client will follow our advice. The other goal for counselors at law is the development of counseling skills within the law office