THIS SCHOLARLY BOOK, written by non-lawyer academicians, studies the decision-making process that divorce lawyers go through every day in representing clients. The authors call these routine decisions "professionalism in practice," which they define as "the making of discretionary judgments in reference to some standards or norms that are thought to be shared among other practitioners." Throughout the book, the authors focus on the challenges that are faced specifically by divorce lawyers.

To gather information for their study, the authors interviewed 163 Maine and New Hampshire divorce lawyers and reviewed over 7,000 divorce cases from court dockets in both states. From that information, they discussed their findings as they applied to different types of divorce practitioners, illustrated by five representative examples: an older male partner in a general practice who does divorce work as part of his practice; a female partner in a practice devoted to divorce work; a male sole practitioner whose divorce practice focuses on low-income clients; a male senior partner at a large firm whose divorce law practice consists of only upper-middle class and rich clients; and a young fourth-year female associate in a large general practice firm whose practice consists of family law and other practice areas. These portraits are based on actual practitioners, but the authors have carefully avoided giving enough specific details for the lawyers to be identified.

The authors compare and contrast the everyday decisions of these practitioners to show how different factors such as gender, partnership and client base influence the decisions and, consequently, the professional judgments of these lawyers. Showing the reader at the start some typical divorce lawyers and the unique and common decisions that each of them makes helps the reader to understand where the standards and norms of professionalism in practice come from.

The book is organized into nine chapters, with each chapter focusing on a different aspect of professionalism in practice and the outside influences on the attorneys' decisions. The first chapter explains the questions the authors will address in the book. The authors also lay out the theories that they will pose, and how they intend to prove those theories.

The second chapter provides the portraits of the above-mentioned five lawyers. The third chapter discusses the influences that different communities have on those five lawyers. For example, the fourth-year associate is influenced by the county in which she practices (and frequently sees and works with the same group of divorce lawyers) and by the community of her law firm. Naturally, her decisions on how to handle her clients are influenced by her partners' pressuring her to meet billable-hour requirements.

Concurrently, however, she is influenced by what is expected of her by her community of fellow divorce lawyers. The authors conclude that as a member of various communities, the divorce lawyer's professional decisions are shaped by what is expected within those communities.

The authors devote the fifth chapter to how divorce lawyers exert control over their clients. They closely examine the control that divorce lawyers have in making decisions on behalf of their clients during the divorce case. They claim that the code of professional responsibility does not provide adequate guidance for divorce lawyers. The code lacks provisions to guide divorce lawyers when they are educating or persuading their clients about what the lawyer sees as the correct outcome for the divorce, the authors suggest. Lawyers base their idea of what is the correct outcome on what they and their community of divorce lawyers have perceived as a fair settlement for both sides. Here again, the authors argue, the collegial community of divorce lawyers is exerting its influence on professional decisions.

The authors also spend a chapter discussing how divorce lawyers are frequently caught in the predicament of serving their clients while still making a profit. Divorce lawyers frequently have problems with their clients not paying their bills, due to the nature of their clients' situations. Thus, many divorce lawyers are faced with trying to withdraw from cases when their clients cannot or will not pay for their services. Also, most divorce lawyers are carrying at least one pro bono case, and often reduce their fee for other cases. This creates a tension for the lawyer between adequately representing the client and earning a living. The authors conclude that the trend in the legal profession is toward pro bono work changing from "the concept of public service into that of private charity."

Deriving personal satisfaction from their work is another struggle for divorce lawyers. Again, the authors contend that what the bar defines as standards for most attorneys - "public esteem, comfortable income, collegial respect" - may not be applicable to divorce lawyers. In fact, the authors found that divorce lawyers are the lowest-paid in the profession, and are not held in high public esteem due to the nature of their practice. Also, in a divorce, rarely is a client happy with the outcome. Therefore, the divorce lawyer does not get the same sense of client satisfaction that lawyers in other practice areas do. To address this, the authors provide different guidelines by which divorce lawyers can judge their professional work. Lawyers should strive to achieve a "fair and reasonable" outcome for their clients, for example. The lawyer's community of practice helps each attorney establish a sense of what is fair and reasonable.

The study concludes that if the legal profession, as a whole, is going to help practitioners grapple with issues of professionalism, then it must pay attention, and give deference, to the varieties of practices and the communities formed by those practices. As the authors point out, in the simplest comparison, there are extreme differences between those lawyers who represent people versus entities. Because there are such differences, one code cannot possibly cover all areas. Instead, they argue, more deference should be paid to collegial control within the communities of practice.

Attorney Mary B. Sheffer is assistant dean for career services at Franklin Pierce Law Center.

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