Law, especially regards litigation, is a profession strictly linked to the observance of deadlines. And it is the primary obligation of this professional to avoid the expiration of the term without proper action. Diverging understandings and lack of thesis that are accepted by the judging body is something that is susceptible, even because the understandings vary over time and are not always uniform between the courts. But letting a deadline pass by the negligence of the legal professional is something inadmissible for the profession.
In fact, the technique of “jurimetrics”, a discipline that makes a diagnosis of the subsumption of a topic to a specific judging body through the application of statistical models, would help to prevent the content of the lawyers’ procedural manifestations from diverging from the final understanding. But it is still something that cannot be guaranteed with precision, but only present the client, part of the process, with a probability of the future result. But to ensure a deadline is something that can be more certain, because there are practices contained in the Legal Comptroller’s Office that, if well structured and complied with, work without risks.
An office whose Legal Controllership works in a harmonious way will never leave it’s client or its collaborators to hazard. But it is essential that the principles of controllership be instilled in the mentality of professionals so that they are followed without casualties. If this is the case, the Controller and his entire team will have mechanisms capable of assuring lawyers that they exercise their profession with the peace of mind that there is no risk of deadlines being missed.
The valorization of these controllership and management practices are being recently valued by the lawyers, which increasingly depends on them for the proper functioning and expansion of the business and management part of a firm, of whatever size or proportion. Evidence of this phenomenon is the Ordinary Law Project sent on 03/30/2022 to the Constitution and Justice and Citizenship Committee of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies – PL nº 646/22 – still pending before the Brazilian Federal Senate and sanction or veto by the Presidency after.
Bill 646/22 seeks to establish consequences for the loss of procedural deadlines by lawyers in addition to the administrative sanctions to which they are already subject, before the Brazilian Bar Association – OAB. This happens because it is not uncommon for a lawyer to miss an important deadline and the client, represented by him, is already surprised by the consequences, hands tied. This is what motivated the author of the Project proposal, Nereu Crispim, who sees this gap in the Law as the absence of collective protection in the face of negligence by the lawyer.
The sanctions proposed in the Project range from warning, censure and fine to suspension and interdiction of professional practice and exclusion of the lawyer from the OAB in case of recurrence of suspension and can be invoked by the aggrieved party or by the Judge, always guaranteeing the lawyer the constitutionally guaranteed principles of contradictory and full defense.
Once the Law resulting from this project is published, the need for Legal Controllership practices will become even more evident, as the lawyer who acts with negligence will face more serious consequences than a simple administrative process.
