News
State Bar & Bar Associations
Aug. 9, 2002
ABA's Leader Wants to Shed 'Liberal' Label
WASHINGTON - Saying the American Bar Association has been stung by decades of unanswered accusations of liberalism, the new president of the world's largest lawyers group is vowing to make "Legal" the new "L" word when people describe the ABA's orientation.
A.P. Carlton, 54, due to take the helm of the bar group early next week for a yearlong stint, said in an interview Thursday that the ABA has occasionally deserved a leftist label but that it also has been unfairly branded liberal at other times.
"Over the past two decades, we've been painted into a corner with the wrong brush by our critics, and we've not responded adequately, I think," said Carlton, an affably animated North Carolinian with a deep, gravely drawl.
He said the bar's standing with its own members has suffered from accusations of favoring liberal positions.
Many barbs aimed at the ABA have been unfair, Carlton said, pointing out that the group's policies are decided by the 535-member elected house of delegates.
"We've not responded to it, that's been the problem. We've been timid," Carlton said. "It has affected our credibility in pursuing our public interest agenda."
He also said it's true the group has, at times, embraced liberalism.
Carlton said a number of hot issues the bar weighed on in the past two decades subsequently drew fire: The Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert Bork, which led to criticism of the association's split "well qualified" rating; a woman's right to have an abortion, which the ABA supports; lukewarm support for the legal right to burn a flag; and the implementation of the death penalty, a form of punishment the bar says should stop until discrepancies are fixed.
"It's good that they can come out of the closet with some of this," said Michael Rushford, president of the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. "They haven't been unbiased about a lot of issues that divide liberals and conservatives."
Conservatives see the ABA as pro-litigation and opposed to executing convicted killers, said Rushford, who expressed doubts that Carlton will succeed in making the 400,000-member group less liberal.
"I'd love to believe what he's saying, but I believe what the ABA does," Rushford said.
The ABA has for years been dogged by the "L" word, this in spite of the fact the group hasn't taken positions on ideological matters in almost a decade, Carlton argued.
While taking a position on abortion might have been questionable to some observers, the death penalty is a legitimate legal issue for the ABA to examine, Carlton said.
Since the ABA stated its opposition a few years ago to the way capital punishment is currently applied, citing dozens of cases of defendants on death row being exonerated, the governors of Maryland and Illinois have proclaimed moratoriums on executions.
"The death penalty position we have has been widely misrepresented as anti-death penalty. It's not," Carlton said. "The position is a very lawyerly position: If you cannot administer the penalty with due process and fairness, you shouldn't do it at all."
But Rushford said if there are misperceptions about where the bar stands on certain issues, it needs to clear them up because they have caused the group to lose portions of its membership. In 1997, Rushford's foundation claimed the ABA had lost thousands of members since 1990.
An ABA spokeswoman said total membership has increased over the years.
Carlton has cited his desire to rid the ABA of its liberal label in several recent interviews but hasn't said the group will be less political or timid during his tenure.
For his part, the Raleigh, N.C., lawyer is a Democrat, but hardly left of center in his politics, and he votes for candidates from both major parties. "I'm not a Yellow Dog Democrat," he said.
He acknowledged that market research has shown that even among the ABA's own members there is a perception that the group isn't advocating for lawyers as much as for political positions. His objective is to raise public awareness about the association's legal expertise and raise the profession's standing in society.
It's doubtful that President Bush will lend a hand. The president is vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, throughout August and won't repeat President Reagan's 1985 welcoming speech at the weeklong ABA conference, which began here Thursday.
As the annual meeting continues next week, the association's house of delegates is expected to take up a number of hot issues dealing with corporate ethics and accountability, as well as questions about the balance between national security and individual rights in the war on terrorism.
Carlton identified those issues as the most important ones lawyers will face during his tenure.
Rushford and other conservatives have complained that the ABA has taken too many positions opposite Bush after pledging to support the administration in the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But Carlton said it's the obligation of the legal community to ask tough questions about how the law is applied during the national crisis.
"Somebody has to say something about it, and it falls to us to do it," he said.
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James Gordon Meek
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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