The land of the free has become a legal minefield, says Philip K. Howard -- especially for teachers and doctors, whose work has been paralyzed by fear of suits. What's the answer? A lawyer himself, Howard has four propositions for simplifying US law.
via www.ted.com
Philip K. Howard, a lawyer and the founder for Common Good – a drive to overhaul the US legal system – talked at TED this year. His outline of 4 propositions to overhaul the current gratuitously litigious legal system was definitely something the ‘World Needs Now’ (the theme of this year’s conference).
Howard outlines through examples and stories some of the more egregious scenarios that our current legal system has created. A teacher that is bullied into changing a grade because the school is afraid of being sued, a dry cleaner that is getting sued for millions for damaging a pair of pants, Drs that spend less time with their patients since they are scared of saying the wrong thing. When did we move into a world where coffee cups need warnings about containing hot liquids and teachers are afraid to put an arm around a crying child?
Having grown up in the UK, coming to the US was definitely eye opening. The culture of fear created by the legal system was very noticeable. Howard explains some of the circumstances from the 60’s where there was issues with racism and sexism that created a system where we wanted to protect people from ‘bad values’, a noble cause no doubt. But creating a system where people don’t have the rights to have good values is swinging the pendulum too far.
He clearly articulates how we have moved to a system where instead of looking at the rights of the community we have focused on the rights of the individual. In an essay that Howard wrote he quotes Lawrence Friedman who calls this ‘total justice’ – in which courts are available to remedy every daily disappointment. The idea that this ‘total justice’ gives us freedom is contrary to the reality where it has stripped us of our liberty. If a swimming accident can lead to all swimming pools being closed and diving boards being removed then do we have more freedom or less?
Howard also quotes Isaiah Berlin, a philosopher, that stated that law should ‘set frontiers, not artificially drawn, within which men should be inviolable’ i.e. law should support freedom not by interceding in daily choices, but by defining the boundaries. Judges should be tasked with drawing these boundaries and achieving a balance between the competing interests of freedom and individual choices.
Howard lays out the following 4 propositions to start addressing these issues:
1. Judge law mainly by its effect on society, not individual situations.
2. Trust in law is an essential condition of freedom. Distrust skews behavior toward failure.
3. Law must set boundaries protecting an open field of freedom, not intercede in all disputes.
4. To rebuild boundaries of freedom, two changes are essential:
a. Simplify law
b. Restore authority to judges and officials to apply law
This was an excellent talk and definitely something the world needs now.
