Lawyers’ Civil Action May Set Precedent

Now that the lawyers have signed on to civility, what’s your problem?

Pardon me. That should be: What’s your problem, sir or ma’am?

I’m sorry. That’s still not exactly sugar and spice, but civility is an acquired taste, and I’m glad that the local bar has set about acquiring it.

Concerned by the prospect of epidemic rudeness, the Ventura County Bar Assn. has drawn up a code to help members behave politely toward one another and their clients.

The code urges attorneys to be punctual and courteous. Telephone calls should be returned promptly, the code notes. Papers should not be served at times selected for opposing counsel’s maximum inconvenience, like Friday afternoons, the eve of religious holidays, or, presumably, just before the next showing of “Jaws: The Pre-Trial Motions.”

Sorry again. In the day of legal civility that is mercifully at hand, there will be no more lawyer jokes, as there will be no need for them.

When civility flourishes, attorneys will no longer “produce documents in such a disorganized or unintelligible fashion calculated to hide or to obscure” important information, the code states. Neither will they conduct an inquiry “designed to harass or embarrass another, or which is intended to impose an inordinate burden or expense.”

So, the cynics might ask, how will lawyers spend their time? But let them mock; the county bar has merely caught the tide of good intentions that has washed over the ill-mannered in all walks of life from coast to coast.

Trying to set an example, members of Congress briefly released their death hold on each other’s carotid arteries to attend a civility retreat at Hershey, Pa., the home of the Hershey’s Kiss. And in Louisiana, the governor just signed a law requiring students to address teachers as Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms., ma’am, or sir. Really good children may use all of them at the same time and earn a chance to leave Louisiana early.

There’s nothing horribly wrong with that, I suppose. There’s nothing wrong with putting rouge on a corpse either, but I’m glad I’m not the one who has to do it.

I can’t say “sir” or “ma’am” in anything but a grudging mumble, and I do hate it when I’ve bought a basket full of groceries and the checker politely asks, “Do you need any help out with that, sir?”

“Who’s this ‘sir’!” I want to thunder. “Are these hands palsied? Is this back stooped? Why, just this morning I sat up and took solid nourishment, and I think I can push this cart over to my old Honda just fine!”

Instead, I say, with a chilling hint of pseudo-British civility, “No. Thenk you just the same.”

In any event, the Ventura County Bar Assn.’s effort is a decent one, and we should all benefit from it. If the lawyers learn civility, perhaps their clients will too. Maybe the bitter battle plans laid by angry spouses facing each other in the family law courts will take on a softer, more humane edge: “Please disembowel the reptile I was unlucky enough to share a bed with for seven years. Thank you.”

We can all stand to be more civil. When he was a schoolboy, George Washington practiced his handwriting by copying from a text “The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.”

Many apply just as well today.

In the office, who wouldn’t be praised for following Rule No. 4: “In the Presence of Others, sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.”

Rule No. 100 can be used to good effect in any restaurant: “Cleanse not your teeth with the Table Cloth Napkin Fork or Knife but if Others do it let it be done with a Pick Tooth.” .

And lawyers--no, make that every Mr., Mrs., Ms., ma’am or sir among us--should be especially attentive to Rule No. 110:

“Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.”

Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is [email protected].