Lawyers' Christian Fellowship                         

Can We Be Trusted?

Next year will mark the anniversary of my tenth year of legal practice. I have been in practice in a period when lawyers have not been the pillars of society that they once were. Since I have been in practice lawyers have always rated very low on those newspaper surveys that place doctors as the most trusted people in our society. The only consolation these articles have provided has been that journalists are even less trusted, so why should I trust the article - after all it was written by a journalist.

Occasionally I get a client of the "older variety". These clients remind me that once upon a time the esteem in which lawyers were held must have been very different. They treat me with great respect, they end any suggestion with the words "but whatever you think would be best". There is an implicit trust that what I advise will be best and they follow the advice and trust it as if it was handed down from on high.

Drawing on his insights into the Australian psyche, obtained through thousands of discussion groups and years of market research Hugh Mackay attempted to address our society's loss of faith in institutions, such as the legal profession and the church, in his opening of law term address at Parramatta.

Mackay saw the loss of faith in legal institutions and the church as part of a broader trend of loss of faith in all institutions. In particular Mackay examined the loss of faith that has occurred in banks. In relation to law and the church Mackay saw the increased scrutiny that these institutions have experienced as part of the reason for the loss of faith.

People were alienated by these institutions because of their inaccessibility to the average person. Often judgments of Courts which received publicity are those that seem most unfair. The values of judges seem to be at odds with those of society generally. The theatre of the wigs and gowns is alien to the average person and the language creates a perception of a secret society. The waiting lists in a our legal system, and the reception areas of solicitors were identified as another reason why people had lost faith in law. To the average person the long wait means to that they do not really count.

With the church Hugh Mackay identified the intricacies of the liturgy, the special language, the horrific evidence of sexual abuse, the propensity of churches to tell people what is right and wrong as reasons for the church no longer to be trusted in the way it was.

These are all internal reasons why these institutions have lost the trust but they do not explain why so many institutions have suffered. The reason for this Hugh Mackay identified as being external factors in particular the period of instability through which are society has been travelling since the sixties.

While change is a feature of most societies Hugh Mackay saw the period from the 1960s as involving three revolutions all occurring at the same time. He identified these revolutions as the gender revolution, the information revolution and the revolution in our cultural identity. Never has society had to deal with so many revolutions simultaneously. The consequence is that there is an epidemic of insecurity, record suicide and use of tranquillisers and anti-depressants.

These revolutions have given rise to the perception that society is running out of control. This has two consequences:

1. People look to someone to blame - youth, immigrants, police not on the beat, the media, the judges. 
2. People look for ways to regain control. This often takes the form of "back to basics".

Both of these trends tend to lead to a resurgence of extremism as people look, as did the Israelites under Aaron while Moses was on the mountain with God, to false hopes, false promises and false Gods. We should know by now that tougher sentences do not address the problems giving rise to crime and more regulation does not make us more obedient.

Hugh Mackay also made some observations on the leadership that people are looking for from their leaders and institutions. People want leadership which gives meaning to their meaningless lives. Leaders who can close the gap between the way we would like to lead our lives and the lives that we actually lead. Leaders who explain who we are to ourselves.

Hugh Mackay's research has shown that people want to live a slower pace of life, they want to spend more time with those they love, they want to be less materialistic, they want to be more concerned with responsibilities and less concerned with rights. And yet Hugh Mackay pointed to our record Christmas splurge and our increasingly litigious society. It is that gap between what we want and what we do that leaders need to bridge.

People wants leaders who are selfless and respond with charity to strangers. People, Hugh Mackay contended will instinctively trust leaders who display this kind of integrity.

In summary people will trust our institutions, will feel better about the church and the law when it helps them feel better about themselves. The key to successful leadership lies primarily in the leaders response to us and our needs rather than our response to the leader.

Hugh Mackay's talk was one of those occasions when I dearly wished that there was a short period for questions because his talk raised more for me than it answered. Do people really want to be told what they are really like? Am I really going to be making them feel better if I tell them how God describes humankind in the bible? The first chapter of Romans may open their eyes but I doubt it will make them feel better about themselves. What about the example of Jesus? He attempted to show people what they were really like, did he make everyone feel better about themselves? Didn't he divide rather than unite? Yet here was a leader who fits all of Hugh Mackay's criteria, selfless, acts toward the poor with charity - ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, was truthful, didn't make a promise he did not keep, he brought a message of good news and ultimately in his death bridged that gap between what we are like and how we should be- between being sinners in Adam and son's and daughters of the living God, of being simultaneously sinner and justified. Would Jesus today be embraced as Hugh Mackay suggests a leader of his qualities should be? I suspect the reaction he would receive today would be little different to the one he received almost two thousand years ago. Yes people want to feel better about themselves but they do not want to know the truth of who they really are in the eyes of God.

A report and comments by Steven Nicholson of the opening of Law Term Address delivered by Dr Hugh Mackay at the opening of Law Term Service at Parramatta on 2nd February 1999.