The Lawyer\u27s Role(s) in Deliberative Democracy

In this paper I will explore the idea of a neutral lawyer who may have neither client (in the conventional sense of client) to represent nor advocacy to perform, yet still be functioning fully as a lawyer or learned professional schooled in the law. Indeed, in this paper I will suggest that lawyers may be especially useful in performing a variety of new functions that depart from traditional conceptions of the lawyer\u27s role, but which lawyers may be especially well suited to perform. It may be counter-cultural to think of lawyers as consensus builders, rather than as advocates or makers of conflict, but that is just what effective lawyers must do. I will suggest that lawyers performing such roles may need to reconceptualize their professional roles, the goals they pursue, the activities they engage in and the rules and standards which might govern their behavior. Paradoxically, I also want to suggest that neutral lawyers (without clients or advocacy) may be well positioned to achieve or facilitate particular resolutions of legal problems that may contribute to justice even more effectively than non-neutral advocates