Task Force Examines Legal Issues Relating to Terrorism

In the aftermath of September 11, ABA president Robert E. Hirshon and the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors created a Task Force on Terrorism and the Law. Its charter is to bring the legal scholarship and expertise of the ABA to assist out political leaders in analyzing the complex and myriad legal issues that have arisen since the disaster. These issues include the legislation and regulatory proposals that the Administration and Congress have been steadily implementing, which impact the legal profession and the clients we represent.

To date, the efforts of the task force, which I chair, have been concentrated on supplying input regarding anti-terrorist legislation, the victim’s compensation fund, the rights of detainees, and the creation of military tribunals by President Bush’s Executive Order of November 13, 2001.

Our task force is a wide-ranging group of seasoned practitioners and legal scholars with great expertise about the civil and criminal justice systems, especially in areas of compensation, immigration , international law, attorney client privilege, terrorism and the sanctions for criminal conduct.

Thus far we have submitted written comments on the USA Patriot Act, the Airline Stabilization Act, the Victims Compensation Fund, the eavesdropping on detainees and their lawyers, and military tribunals/commissions.

The task force is also recommending to President Hirshon and the Board of Governors that a new task force be created to examine the Department of Justice’s so-called gate-keeping initiatives. Those initiatives focus on suspect financial transactions and the possibility that lawyers may be required to report questionable financial activity by clients, much like the activity reporting requirements currently in effect for banks and other financial institutions.

The work of the task force has proven the necessity and obligation of the profession to make itself relevant to the changing legal landscape. Only with the support of individual lawyers and law firms can the profession have a meaningful and relevant voice in the hottest legal debates. Unless law firms and individual lawyers recognize their duty to participate in the public policy debate, our profession will be reactive at best, irrelevant at worst. President Hirshon and the Board demonstrated their leadership on this front by taking swift action to appoint the Task Force on Terrorism and the Law and I’m proud to report that it has had an important impact.

Lawyers can and must protect the integrity of the rule of law. The stakes for our society and indeed the world are far too great for us to fail in this mission.