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Alternative Dispute Resolution


Fostering the Next Generation


Robert J. Zarbin M


any of you have heard that the Court of Appeals has been considering adopting mandatory CLE for all members of the Maryland Bar. Te discussion


has centered on requiring that all attorneys spend a prescribed number of hours in a classroom setting, in the hope that this process will boost the basic competence of the State’s lawyers. Te MAJ response to this idea is best expressed by Mark


Twain, who said “never let formal education get in the way of your learning.” Better lawyers are mentored, not taught. What good lawyers


do well – advocacy - is an art, not a science. Law school can teach you the elements of negligence, but the ability to win a slip and fall case is not something you glean from lecture notes. Rather, trial lawyers learn their trade by on the job training – preparing and trying cases. In short, if the goal is a greater number of people who can practice law, the best approach is a mentoring system – where new admittees are apprenticed to senior practitioners. It is for this reason that MAJ proposes asking members of the Trial Bar to mentor new lawyers. Teach them the craft of trial preparation and the art of advocacy. Not only will mentoring yield better results, but mandatory


classroom CLE creates more problems than it solves. Seminars currently sponsored by MAJ, not to mention other bar associations, feature presenters who volunteer to write/speak about various topics. When CLE is mandatory, private vendors rush in to take control of the programs. Tis desire to control the programs is understandable once you do some simple math. If there are 23,000 members and each is required to attend 10 hours of CLE, this means a marketplace for CLE is created for 230,000 hours of CLE time, at say $150.00 per one hour of class time.


Also, requiring CLE is not the same as requiring good


CLE, taught by qualified instructors. For example, in other jurisdictions, large firms or government lawyers have met CLE quotas with in-house presentations. If the firm or agency has exceptional litigators, this teach-your-own system might work. But, it is just as likely that in-house talent will teach in-house style. Attorneys working for a firm without talented lawyers,


10 Trial Reporter / Fall 2010


or with reputation for less than scrupulous tactics, never get a chance to see how to do things the right way – breeding another generation of un-talented and/or unscrupulous lawyers. Te MAJ response to mandatory CLE is a simple one. Let


the more senior members of the various bar associations teach their art to the younger ones. At our suggestion, the Court of Appeals approved a Pilot Mentoring Program for New Admittees to the Maryland Bar, and the Honorable Lynne Battaglia is recruiting experienced lawyers to serve as mentors. Interested lawyers can obtain the Implementation Plan Packet and the Mentoring Application by contacting Alison Schwartz, Executive Director of the Professionalism Commission, at (410) 260-1565 or alison.schwartz@mdcourts.gov and will be available on the web in the near future at http://www.courts.state.md.us/ professionalism/index.html. Because the quality of the next generation of lawyers depends on how we train them, I encourage everyone to participate. 


Biography Robert J. Zarbin (Te Jaklitsch Law Group) received his


JD from Loyola University School of Law. He is President of MAJ and is a member of the President's Club as an Eagle and serves as the Chair of the Legislative Committee. Mr. Zarbin is the past Chair of MAJ's Workers' Compensation Section. He is a member of the Bar Association of Baltimore City, the Baltimore County Bar Association, the Prince George's County Bar Association, the District of Columbia Bar Association and the American Association for Justice. Mr. Zarbin has been a guest lecturer at MAJ conferences and AAJ conferences. His practice concentrates in personal injury, product liability, and workers' compensation.


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