In the middle of a recent court proceeding, two lawyers squabbled with each other about not returning phone calls and sending bills for copies each didn't think should be paid.

Name-calling ensued.

"I spent 15 minutes of hearing time to address something that should have been addressed outside. It slowed my process down," says Judge J. David Walsh of the Seventh Judicial Circuit.

Incivility in court is a growing problem, and Walsh has been tapped to help find a solution by organizing a peer review program.

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead has emphasized that all judicial circuits must establish an ongoing effort to improve professionalism among members of the Florida Bar. To meet that need, Seventh Circuit Court Chief Judge Julianne Piggotte approved an administrative order establishing the Peer Review program within the circuit.

The new program is no substitute for disciplinary processes already in place in the court system for malpractice, Walsh says. But peer review is intended to allow judges and lawyers to bring their issues to an impartial panel. The group would include experienced attorneys seeking an informal way of resolving a dispute.

Walsh is looking for volunteers to serve and trying to educate attorneys about the program.

"It's voluntary and educational, not punitive," he says. "We hope a year from now we have something up and running and quite workable."

Peer reviews could help remind attorneys about their own level of professionalism, he says.

"A case we tried here went four weeks and involved the death of an individual. What appeared to happen is, the lawyers forgot they were not the litigants but only the representative of those individuals. They lost sight of that and began going at each other directly," Walsh says. "When they are impolite to each other and call each other names, it affects their clients."

The problem of incivility, he says, goes back a way, and local changes in society over the years have added to the problem in Volusia County.

"Ever since the Watergate years, people have come up with less respect for governmental organizations," Walsh explains. "When I first came to town from New Jersey in 1977, I had served in the Navy in Vietnam and traveled quite a bit, but I wanted a small-firm environment and a trial practice."

The local atmosphere was friendly, and attorneys "hung out" together, he says.

"We used to gather at a waterhole -- Club 92 -- on Speedway (International Boulevard). You would run into the same guy you had been opposing in the courtroom," he says. "It was a great place to unwind, where young lawyers would meet up with old lawyers."

Those days are over, Walsh says.

"The opportunity is not there because people are so busy, so we are struggling to find a way where young lawyers can get together with older lawyers and learn from them," he says. "How can attorneys be more civil to one another?"

One local effort, which began two years ago, has been making some progress, although not enough by itself.

"We call it Inns of Court, which comes from the British system. We created one here in this county spearheaded by Chobee Ebbets," Walsh says. The membership in the Inns of Court is an ever-changing cast of 100 lawyers of all ages and career stages, who get together to create a camaraderie among bar members.

"The difference in the American system and the British system of justice comes from how we educate our lawyers," says Ebbets, a long-time local attorney. "There you have to go through Inns of Court -- a process of learning with your brother and sister lawyers who become your friends. It's like a fraternity process -- you bond."

Ebbets contrasted the English way with the American system.

"Lawyers throughout the country are guilty of the highest levels of discourtesy toward their fellow practitioners. We practice law like it was the Old West," he says. "Here we all go to different law schools and lawyers are very combative. Myself as an example, I have been guilty of saying things to other lawyers I wish I had not said."

He hasn't done that since establishing the Inns of Court program here, because the program has helped him become more keenly aware of his legal peers. The group, with a changing mix of 100 attorneys, gathers for dinners, puts on programs, discusses issues and socializes.

Walsh says Inns of Court meets quarterly and is helping to some extent.

Additional motivation by Judge Piggotte to establish a way to resolve civility problems through peer review will help too, he adds.

"The attorney will fill out a form and send it to the Chief Judge through the local bar president," Walsh says. An appointed panel will sit with the parties to discuss the matter.

"They will talk it through and how it can be resolved," he says. "After 60 days, all the paperwork is destroyed. From our standpoint this might lower the volume a little bit."

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