Practitioners Trapped Between the Techy and the Fairness (3)
- AAmstg
- Feb 1
- 5 min read
Reflections on Legal Cultures, the Future of Law and the Legal Practise in a Globalized World
Part Three: Yet it also cannot endure without them, Justice cannot thrive solely on techniques.
The concept of legal technician in the context of these reflections evokes a professional whose function focuses on the technical and procedural domain of laws and regulations but who could be disconnected from the most human, strategic and philosophical dimension of law. This profile tends to emerge as a functional gear within a broader system in an environment saturated with legislation and institutions overloaded by bureaucracy. Still, it is simultaneously limited in its transformative capacity.
Next, several questions could be asked about this professional profile. The first is whether it can list specific characteristics that single it out.
Characteristics of the Legal Technician
The following four qualities could define a legal technician:
This practitioner has a domain of normative and procedural skills.
The legal technician is, above all, an expert in regulations, codes and procedures. His primary ability lies in knowing and skillfully managing the current regulatory apparatus, ensuring that a precise legal framework supports each action or decision. His expertise allows him to navigate between complex provisions easily, interpret regulations and execute procedures with formal rigour. This detailed knowledge is undoubtedly of undeniable value. Still, it often carries a risk: the conversion of law into an end in itself rather than a means to achieve just and functional solutions.
Deploy a functionalist approach.
For the legal technician, the application of rules and processes is a fundamentally instrumental task. Its objective is to ensure that everything is done "as it should be done" by the dictates of the law, without necessarily dwelling on the underlying reasons for the rules or their consequences in the real world. This functionalist approach can be practical for the operationality of the system, but it can also generate rigidities that prevent the development of creative solutions or adjust to specific contexts. In this sense, the legal technician may lose sight of the role of law as a mechanism for generating balance and consensus within society.
Devoted to legal formalism.
One of the most marked tendencies of the legal technician is his inclination towards legal formalism. His vision is oriented to strict (many times it does mean 'in literal sense') observance of legal requirements, sometimes regardless of material equity or the practicality of its solutions. For this profile, the validity of a legal act lies not so much in its Justice or effectiveness but in the exact fulfilment of the stipulated procedures. While this attitude guarantees certainty and legal certainty, it can also lead to a rigid application of the law that leaves little room for adaptability to exceptional circumstances or the particular needs of those seeking legal assistance.
Makes Evidence of the Depersonalisation of Law
The emphasis on regulatory compliance and procedural rigour can lead the legal technician to address legal problems impersonally and mechanically. In his desire to ensure the formal correctness of his actions, he can distance himself from the human dimension of the law, which attends to the interests, emotions and specific realities of the people involved in a conflict or transaction. This trend towards depersonalisation reinforces a bureaucratic view of the law, where people become files and legal problems become simple procedural issues.
All the characteristics are due to causes. Those of the legal technician could well be the following:
Causes of the "Technification" of Law in an Administrative Environment
There may be others, but I mark only three:
- Excess of Legislation and Rules:
The proliferation of laws and regulations, often contradictory or redundant, makes the right a technical tangle that requires specialists to navigate.
- Bureaucratisation of justice:
The excess in protocols and internal organisational rules of judicial institutions, emphasising procedures and deadlines, can transform Justice into a mechanical exercise of regulatory compliance rather than the search for just solutions.
- Distance between law and society:
Instead of being a tool to resolve conflicts or improve community life, the law is perceived as an autonomous system that responds more to internal processes than people's needs.
The set of causes that condition the environment where the legal technician performs and with which the person and the environment mutually influence each other generates risks that also feed back the scenario self-perpetuating.
Risks of the Predominance of the 'legal technician'
Again, there may be others, but I mark only three:
- Reduction of the role of the lawyer:
The legal professional could be relegated to a mere manager of legal procedures and requirements, losing his ability to influence decisions or promote structural changes strategically.
- Formalistic and empty Justice:
The insistence on technical compliance can lead to decisions that, although legally correct, are perceived as unfair or disconnected from social reality.
- Stagnation and lack of innovation:
A technical approach limits legal creativity and the ability to propose innovative solutions or solutions adapted to changing contexts.
When an over-dimension in the observed risk levels and the accumulation of disagreements between society and its justice system, all this indicates the disconnection between the institutions, the purposes that encouraged them and the consequences that are reached and begin to be perceived as unhealthy. That's when you have to suggest a change in the performance regime. And encourage them to apply those antidotes that can redirect the state of affairs. I am sceptical about obtaining this result in the short term, even correcting at least the most apparent distortions about the objectives when the deviations are superstructural. However, below are my ideas on this particular.
Antidotes: Advocate to go beyond Technique
Four levers could serve the aims and goals:
- Recover the Purpose of Justice within the Rule of Law:
Lawyers and judges must remember that the law is not an end but a tool to achieve Justice, equity and social peace. This requires balancing formalism with a humanistic and strategic vision.
- Promote Critical Thinking:
A lawyer who limits himself to applying rules does not question the inconsistencies or injustices of the system. Legal training must include philosophy of law, ethics and sociology in a deeper meaning and educational content to develop a broader vision of their societal role.
- Incorporate interdisciplinary skills:
A "law technician" should transform themselves into a "law strategist" who combines legal knowledge with economics, finance, technology and social sciences to understand and address problems comprehensively.
- Promote regulatory simplification:
Advocate for more transparent and more accessible legal frameworks that allow the law to be understood and used by everyone, not only by technical specialists.
As a result of the set of antidotes, the goal is to maintain some harmony between technology and Justice in the broader sense.
Final reflection: What Role should the Legal Technician play?
A "legal technician" is essential to ensure the proper functioning of a complex legal system, but it cannot be the only model of a lawyer. Although its precision and rigour are valuable, the right loses its essence when it is reduced exclusively to a technical exercise.
In an environment where legislative saturation and bureaucracy are the norm, the challenge is to transcend technique and recover the lawyer's role as a mediator between rules and human needs, balancing technical precision with strategic vision and a sense of Justice. The technician must be part of the team, but he cannot lead the transformation of a system that requires adapting to a constantly changing world.
My resume about the theme is this: because society rules over the law through mutual and common convenience principles, nor is the rule of law simply a set of dictated statements from thin air, nor is Justice merely a blind executor of dictates coming from that same thin air.
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