The Virginia Bar Association declared that more than 250,000 practicing advocates are now over the age of 55 years. The total number will be more than 750,000 in the next decade. Everyone knows that as human’s age, they must deal with brain recall issues. A little less than ten percent of people over 65 experience Alzheimer’s disease.
We must make sure that lawyers are not demented.
Thus, the Online Think Tank has suggested bi-annual testing of all lawyers over age 50 to make sure they are competent and this can be done in conjunction with “on-going education” and passing a 3/4 bar test every two years. Their IQs can be tested too, along with their recall.
As our laws become more complicated due to all the case law, regulators, politicians and lawyers it is prudent of us to make sure they can keep up with all they created. The Virginia Bar Association puts out a little newsletter called; “The Complete Lawyer” each month. They have addressed this pressing issue of: Alzheimer’s, Senility and Dementia.
And although they did not address the issue of integrity in the article, it is indeed worth reading. Some might say that kicking a lawyer out of the bar for being old is unfortunate, but if they are not giving good legal advice, how can the public tolerate that. The Online Think Tank suggests that we add more oversight into the law profession and make it as slightest as hard to participate in as the formalities or norms they create for all of us in our professions.