Here’s To The Lay Person: Providing A Public Perspective For Lawyers

Only a select few professions refer to those outside the profession as lay people: doctors, the clergy and the law. In this usage, a lay person is someone who has not become socialized into the group in question by sharing the same training and viewpoints, and as such they provide a necessary counterpoint to the cohesive perspectives within the profession.

Though he is a member of the Methodist clergy, when it comes to the law, the Rev. Dr. Theodore “Ted” Smith is one such counterpoint — the sole lay person on the Clients’ Protection Fund board who, as a nonlawyer, assists the board in understanding and empathizing with people who have suffered a financial loss due to a lawyer’s malfeasance.

For over a decade Smith has been giving the lawyers of the Virginia State Bar a lay person’s perspective on the law. His first interaction with the Bar came when the Honorable Rossie D. Alston Jr., now of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, asked him to be on a disciplinary committee in Alexandria.

Laughs Smith, “Rossi actually approached me and said, ‘The Virginia State Bar is an organization of lawyers and a few nonlawyers, and we need someone who’s ignorant of the law. You’re perfect.’”

Smith was willing, and he began first with a disciplinary district committee, and then transitioned onto the Standing Committee on Lawyer Discipline. From there, he moved onto the Disciplinary Board and then later began his current service to the Clients’ Protection Fund Board. In all of these roles, he has served purely as a volunteer: Someone willing to help Virginia’s lawyers with the process of self-regulation.

According to Smith, the lawyers of the Virginia State Bar have worked tirelessly to include nonlawyers in the process of self-regulation.

“In my experience with all of my Virginia State Bar committee service, there really is a respect of lay people who are volunteering,” Smith said. “Very often when questions arise about a lay person’s perspective, a public perspective, or what the average citizen who has no connection to the law or to the legal field thinks, I have encountered a great respect and an intentional effort to hear the lay perspective.”

Smith said that going from the disciplinary process to the Clients’ Protection Fund Board was a natural move because, “much of what we see as a part of the Clients’ Protection Fund is a direct result of action from the disciplinary process.”

According to Smith, the Clients’ Protection Fund doesn’t involve itself in the disciplinary process, but rather steps in to focus on “the fiduciary part of the situation.” The Board investigates the petitions, reviews the files, talks to the petitioners, and also tries to make contact with the lawyers involved to hear their version of what occurred before awarding restitution.

Unsurprisingly, lawyers who find themselves on the other end of a CPF award are often not pleased because that lawyer must reimburse the Fund before they can activate their license again. That said, the vast majority of Virginia’s lawyers will never have any interaction with the disciplinary process nor the Clients’ Protection Fund.

Smith believes that Virginia lawyers should see the CPF as an inexpensive form of lawyer advertising. “I would hope and encourage lawyers to understand that the Clients’ Protection Fund performs a service for them that they really can’t perform for themselves.

“It is a very fair process, and for just $10 they are getting more value for money in terms of lawyer reputation than any other advertising they could buy. So, lawyers should have confidence that they’re paying a very small fee into something that has great results for the profession, even though they will likely never have direct contact with it,” Smith continued.

Ultimately, said Smith, the goal of the CPF is to make things fair and to make sure everyone, including the lawyers accused of taking unearned fees, gets heard. “It’s important that everyone gets a fair shake,” Smith said.

The most important part of the process, according to Smith, is the opportunity for all involved to have their side of the story explained. “Both lawyers and petitioners— when a petition is filed and when there’s a dispute—people want to be heard and they want to know that their situation was well-considered and with full fairness in the process.”

Though every active lawyer contributes to the Fund, many aren’t really sure what it does, or how it improves the legal profession. Smith said that from the public perspective it’s a great benefit: “The fund benefits the average lawyer from a perspective of trust and credibility with the public. Most lawyers depend on trust, the public trust and confidence to do business. Lawyers want the public to believe that they’re trustworthy, that they’re capable, that they’re professional.”

Because lawyers are paid in advance for their work, clients put their faith in the lawyers’ abilities to safeguard that money and keep it in trust until the fees are earned. If that money is taken or stolen by just one lawyer, the entire system is blemished. “From my perspective, the Clients’ Protection Fund provides a place where the average lawyer can say ‘we have a system of accountability. We have several systems of accountability.’”

In his professional life, Rev. Dr. Smith is a United Methodist pastor, working as Director of Connectional Ministries (similar to a chief of staff) for the United Methodist Church of Virginia. A native of Virginia, Smith received degrees from Virginia Wesleyan University, Emory University, and Wesley Theological Seminary before embarking on his career with the United Methodist Church. But what’s most amazing about his lengthy resume, beyond his numerous mission trips to Africa, Korea, Russia, Cuba, and other far-flung places, is his extensive list of volunteer service.

There is an old saying that “If you want to get something done, ask a busy person.” And for the Virginia State Bar, that aphorism has proven true for over a decade. Ted Smith has given countless hours to making sure that the lawyers of the Commonwealth have the opinion of the general public in mind when making decisions that protect Virginians while simultaneously improving the profession.