Friends at the Bar

Nancy Black Sagafi-Nejad

Description

George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, admonished his followers against "going to law." In this fascinating, wide-ranging book, a Quaker lawyer explores the relationship between Quakers and the American legal system and discusses Friends' legal ethics. A highly influential group in the US both for their spiritual ideals of harmony, equality and truth-telling and for their activism on many causes including abolition and opposition to war, Quakers have had many noteworthy interactions with the law. Nancy Black Sagafi-nejad sketches the history and beliefs of the early Quakers in England and America, then goes on to look at important twentieth century constitutional law cases involving Quakers, many involving civil rights issues. Sagafi-nejad's survey of 100 Quaker lawyers shows them to be at odds with the adversarial system and highlights a legal practice which must balance truth-telling and zealous advocacy. The Quaker development of extra-legal dispute resolution to solve debates amongst Friends is discussed along with a look at the possible future of mediation.
List of Figures
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One

1. About Friends

2. Friends’ Beginnings in England

3. Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania and His Changes to Its Laws

Part Two

4. Quakers as Plaintiffs and Defendants in Court and as“Divine Lobbyists”

5. Quaker Lawyers and Lawyer Ethics

6. Mediation and Arbitration: Past and Future

Epilogue

Appendix
Notes
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Group
• Christian Church
• Denomination
• History of religions

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 02 janvier 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438434155
• Langue: English

Extrait

Friends at the Bar
A Quaker View of Law, Conflict Resolution, and Legal Reform
NANCY BLACK SAGAFI-NEJAD

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2011 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Eileen Meehan Marketing by Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sagafi-nejad, Nancy Black, 1937–
Friends at the bar : a Quaker view of law, conflict resolution, and legal reform / Nancy Black Sagafi-nejad.             p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3413-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Quakers—legal status, laws, etc.—United States. 2. Religion and law—United States. I. Title.
KF4869.Q83S24 2010
342.7308'52—dc22      2010020730
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Tagi, Jahan, and David with love and respect
List of Figures
Figure 1
A Lawyer and His Client
Figure 2
Length of Time Practicing Law
Figure 3
Reasons for Becoming a Lawyer
Figure 4
Size/Kind of Practice with Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
Figure 5
Strength of Identification as Quaker with Quaker Influence on Practice
Figure 6
Type of Law Practice
Figure 7
Quaker Influence on Practice with Experience of Tension
Figure 8
Strength of Identification as Quaker with Experience of Tension
Figure 9
Strength of Identification as Quaker with Use of ADR
Figure 10
Quaker Influence on Practice with Use of ADR
Foreword
When I was becoming a Quaker, some of my most influential mentors were conscientious objectors to World War II, to the peacetime draft, and to the then-current Korean Police Action. Most had served in Civilian Public Service camps. Others had served one or two prison terms for their opposition to war. They were lawbreakers for conscience's sake, asserting obedience to a “higher law.” One important mentor was an elderly Quaker lawyer who had refused to register when the Roosevelt administration tried to extend draft registration for men into their sixties. He and his wife were tax resisters. In fact, some of my first Quaker models were also women my grandmother's age, who spoke easily of civil disobedience and being arrested. (This was a surprise to me, since where I grew up, people who got arrested and jailed preferred not to discuss the matter.) When I appealed my draft board's refusal to grant my conscientious objector status, a nice draft board member asked me, “Paul, how did you get yourself into this fix?” Well might he wonder.
My first Quaker brushes with the law help frame my reading of Friends at the Bar: A Quaker View of Law, Conflict Resolution, and Legal Reform , Nancy Black Sagafi-nejad's careful, insightful and multilayered study of how Quakers, and especially Quaker lawyers, have negotiated, reconciled, or lived in tension with their professional and spiritual lives. The Friends she studies are on both sides of the bar: as defendants, plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, and prosecutors. To be a lawyer today requires detailed knowledge of law and statute, as well as the protocols of the courtroom; how to represent, to litigate, to reach a settlement, and to work effectively in a system adversarial by design. It also requires maintaining one's own integrity and living by what Quakers call our “testimonies,” the word we use exactly as it is used in a court of law–a promise to tell the truth, whole and nothing but.
The book is divided into two parts. The first gives us a history of the origins of Quakerism in the aftermath of the English Civil War, the Puritan Commonwealth, an age of life-and-death competing Christian communions—primarily Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Baptist, as well as a host of “dissenting” sects, for example, Seekers, Ranters, Levelers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchy Men, Muggletonians, and of course “the people in scorn called Quakers.” Those sects differed widely in theology, but they had in common being targets of judicial oppression. Friends even got their nickname in court, from a judge who sneered at George Fox's assertion that Friends “quaked” before the Lord.
This first period of Quakerism, from the mid-seventeenth century through the Commonwealth, the Stuart Restoration, the founding of Pennsylvania, the Glorious Revolution and down to when Quakers withdrew from control of the Pennsylvania legislature rather than vote approval of war tax for the French and Indian War, lays the foundation for a rich legal history. The first Quakers were either in court or in prison, or getting ready for either, much of the time. In response, Friends created several institutions to challenge the laws and defend themselves assertively in court and in petitioning parliament. The Meeting for Sufferings became the instrument for documenting Quakers’ battles with the law, for supporting families while the parents were in prison, and for engaging wherever possible with parliament, Lord Protector, and King to change unjust laws. Fox traveled with a book on the common law with him and was a stickler for proper process such as the reading of charges aloud and the exact wording of warrants. He was a self-taught lawyer, as were virtually all the Quakers entangled in the law at that time. The incidents he recounts in his journal are exciting, serious, and sometimes comic, and they virtually always ended with Fox going back to prison.
Friends at the Bar gives us an overview of such pivotal court contests as the Penn v. Mead trial, which ultimately established the independence of juries. Had space allowed, the book might also have explored many other ingenious Quaker responses to legal oppression, from the passive resistance of Isaac Penington, who on principle never defended himself in court, to the assertiveness of Thomas Elwood, who at his own expense brought witnesses from a distance to prove in court that an informer had lied about the defendants’ being at a specific Quaker meeting. Or the noncooperation of groups of Friends who stopped traveling to distant courts at their own expense, instead requiring that the authorities pay for transporting them. Suddenly indulging in legal oppression became expensive for the taxpayers, so harassing Quakers for unlawful assembly or preaching in public declined substantially.
These Quakers helped bring down many unjust laws or practices, helped to achieve notable victories for civil liberties. And as part proprietor of West Jersey and later governor of Pennsylvania, Penn the scholar, statesman, and conscientious lawbreaker, creates a model legal charter for preserving individual liberty.
In her explication of key Quaker testimonies, Nancy Black Sagafi-nejad cites Howard Brinton's explanation of the Peace Testimony as a commitment to harmony, which underlines why Quaker lawyers would be committed to negotiation, mediation, and arbitration as tools for avoiding adversarial conflict. Brinton emphasizes two aspects of harmony—peace and justice—confirming the practical truth that there can be no peace without justice, nor justice without peace.
The second part of this book closely explores how individuals as well as local and yearly meetings, and the American Friends Service Committee have played direct roles as plaintiffs and defendants in landmark First Amendment, liberty of conscience and equal rights cases, and challenges to immigration policy. The examples remind us that our only way to challenge a law's constitutionality in court is by showing that it directly harms us. That means that “proving an interest” may require disobeying a law and thus risking a conviction and punishment. Many individuals and Quaker institutions today challenge laws directly or in amicus curiae coalition with the American Civil Liberties Union and civil rights organizations. Nancy Black Sagafi-nejad also focuses usefully on the work of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the “Quaker lobby,” which has been so instrumental in developing both civil rights legislation and in challenging abuses of civil liberties.
All this valuable discussion prepares us for what seems to me the heart of the book, its concluding chapters, which take us deeply into the ethical choices and conflicts Quaker lawyers experience. The author solicited responses to a series of questions (found in the Appendix ) and analyzes the replies of one hundred practicing or former Quaker male and female lawyers. These lawyers record the difficulties of telling the whole truth in adversarial proceedings, of dealing with pressure to generate billable hours, and keeping their integrity while performing professionally. They emphasize the inadequacy of law school curriculum to address ethics adequately. Quaker lawyers are idealists who enter the profession to do good and serve real needs for people. Many of them report disillusionment, isolation from colleagues, and lack of support within their group practices. Out of this discussion the book offers some valuable recommendations about how the law school curriculum and the in court norms might be changed.
Any good book leaves its readers wanting to know more and with questions implied. And this is a very good book. Reading it sets me considering the substantial Quaker responses to the civil rights movement as well as to the widespread assaults on civil liberties we usually call McCarthyism. The Yearly Meeting of the Civil Liberties Committee of Philadelphia, which grew out of a national Quaker conference on the issues in 1954, and the Rights of Conscience Committe