“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
~ Ida B. Wells
As a local general practice in Santa Barbara that has been in business for over forty-five years, we take a holistic approach to the law. Our Law Firm offers benefits unique to a small private practice. Particularly after the coronavirus pandemic, more and more law practices are adding barriers that are making interactions with their own clients more virtual and remote, less personal and detailed. While we are keeping up to date with the technological changes of practicing law, we do not believe that moving clients through a generic assembly line of digital checkboxes will accomplish the best results. We believe that it is impossible to competently serve each client’s specific and individual needs without forming a relationship of trust with each client personally.
We live in an age of bureaucratic and technocratic specialization. The problem with specializing in only one area of the law is the struggle to keep the big picture in view. For example, a family law specialist who does not practice in estate planning will often make costly mistakes for a client due to a lack of understanding as to how decisions in a divorce or child custody dispute can affect the client’s family trust and estate plan. An attorney who specializes in only estate planning will often make serious or costly errors due to a lack of detailed knowledge in real estate law. This applies across the board. As general practice attorneys, Stephen E. Penner and J.A.A. Purves are able to apply and tailor their knowledge and experience in multiple areas of law to each individual case in order to obtain the best possible outcome for their clients. Effective and persuasive advocacy involves taking in the big picture, being well-rounded in both philosophy and practice, and exercising both moral imagination and outside-the-box creativity.
THE RULES OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY OUGHT TO BE ASSUMED
While this is our statement of Core Values, underlying our law practice is the assumption that the Rules of Professional Responsibility’s values of honesty, integrity, competence, diligence, confidentiality, loyalty, experience, and law abidingness may be taken for granted. Every law firm has to practice honesty and client loyalty because, by definition, that is what is required to be a lawyer licensed with the bar. Any law firm that markets “honesty” as one of its values is demonstrating that there is a much bigger problem in professional ethics. So, let’s assume that every good law firm abides by the professional values, and let’s explore what makes our law firm unique and distinctive compared to the competition.
DILIGENCE
Vigilantibus, et non dormientibus, jura subveniunt.
The vigilant, and not the sleepy, are assisted by the laws.
~ Axiom of Common Law
CLARITY
Τα πολλά λόγια είναι φτώχια.
Many words are poverty.
~ Spartan Proverb
EMPATHY
Corpus humanum non recipit aestimationem.
A human body is not susceptible of appraisement.
~ Axiom of Common Law
PRUDENCE
Judicia in deliberationibus crebro maturescunt, in accelerato processu nunquam.
Judgments become frequently matured by deliberations, never by hurried process.
~ Axiom of Common Law
FAMILY
Justitiae est et caritatis bonum commune velle et pro eo operari.
To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.
~ Axiom of Common Law
VIRTUE ETHICS
Omnium rerum quarum usus est, potest esse abusus, virtute sola excepta.
There may be an abuse of everything of which there is a use, virtue alone excepted.
~ Axiom of Common Law
REASON
Ratio est legis anima.
Reason is the soul of the law.
~ Axiom of Common Law
THE GOOD
ἢ οἴει τι πλέον εἶναι πᾶσαν κτῆσιν ἐκτῆσθαι, μὴ μέντοι ἀγαθήν
Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good?
~ Plato, Republic