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In Praise of Cooperation and Collaboration By Stewart M. Young
Stewart M. Young is a member of the editorial board of The Federal Lawyer and currently serves as the president of the Utah Chapter of the FBA. He serves as an assistant U.S. attorney (AUSA) in the District of Utah. He previously served as an AUSA in the Southern District of California and as a tenure-track law professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law. He is a twotime federal law clerk and a graduate of both Stanford Law School and Princeton University. Young writes in his personal capacity; the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Department of Justice or the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.
In 2005, Utah had a problem. The state’s homeless population had risen dramatically, and myriad issues arose along with that increase in homelessness. Rather than admire the problem and spout platitudes regarding it, Utah created a state homelessness task force (the State Homeless Coordinating Committee) to provide creative solutions. The task force included many stakeholders as well as several lawyers, all of whom worked tirelessly toward solving the homeless crisis in the state. The end result was a 91-percent drop in chronic homelessness through 2015, as the task force touted a “Housing First” policy that “focused on getting people into housing, regardless of mental illness or substance abuse problems that could be treated after accommodation was secured.”1 Several years later, Utah had been lauded as “a leader among U.S. cities struggling to relieve homelessness,” although the model ushered into practice by Utah fizzled out without the requisite programmatic funding.2 While Utah has struggled with its homelessness program over the past several years, this original program, and the Homeless Coordinating Committee that created the program back in 2005, was a clear success for almost a decade. An NPR story outlined one central component of success for that task force: “[M]ost of the advocates and agencies in Utah know each other and work well with each other.”3 These disparate groups came together, in cooperation and collaboration, for a common good and solved an issue (albeit, temporarily) that concerned the community. These groups and stakeholders, through their cooperation and collaboration, made a difference in the community. Alas, lawyers are not well known for cooperation and collaboration. Our profession is known for its adversarial nature rather than its collaborative endeavors. Indeed, not many lawyers are publicly praised for being “the most cooperative lawyer” around. Bar associations around the country, and other important attorney organizations, bestow honors for the “Trial Attorney of the Year,” which, by its very nature, demonstrates the adversarial nature of our profession. In my 18 years of practice, I have yet to see an attorney awarded for “Collaborator of the Year.” One could say
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that our profession almost punishes cooperation and rewards antagonism. Of course, thoughts on cooperation and collaboration by lawyers (or the lack thereof ) are nothing new. In 1850, for instance, Abraham Lincoln remarked, “Discourage litigation …. As a peace-maker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”4 Over the past 170 years, one could argue that this statement has not necessarily made a dent in our collective practices. In the past decade, cooperation and collaboration among disparate groups, and in our legal profession, is more in vogue, however. Task forces, implemented to solve problems, have become a buzzword and an important facilitator of change in our community and among legal groups, often with lawyers leading the way. The American Bar Association has an entire webpage devoted to the 10 task forces it has created to solve criminal justice issues as varied as Campus Sexual Misconduct to Women in Criminal Justice.5 The FBA has its own task forces as well. A recent gander at the FBA website reveals several of these devoted to important legal issues, including the Veteran’s Assistance Task Force6 and the Access to Justice Task Force.7 And, the Legal Services Corporation, established to promote equal access to justice and to fund civil legal aid for low-income Americans, counts at least five of their own, including the Rural Justice Task Force, the Opioid Task Force, and the Disaster Task Force.8 These important task forces, across a spectrum of legal organizations, seek to better our communities and provide solutions to a number of problems within the criminal justice system. This collaboration and cooperation among lawyers and members of the community is critical to helping to solve dire problems in our society. Even the Department of Justice (DOJ) itself (my current employer) has jumped onto the collaboration bandwagon for several of its prosecutorial priorities. There are several federal law enforcement agencies that don’t always work closely together, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol,
