I was at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco last week. Here are some conclusions.Their Section of International Law gave its Human Rights Award to the Chinese human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng. I wrote about him some months ago under the heading ‘Where is Gao Zhisheng?’, but that title is still applicable. Although the calls from his supporters led to Gao Zhisheng reappearing for a short while earlier this year, he has now disappeared again, and no one knows where he is. It would take a heart of stone not to have been moved by the sight of his very young daughter, in her tiny bolero jacket and uncertain heels, accepting the award on his behalf, but being too overcome by emotion to be able to say a single word to the microphone. I only hope that the cries of ‘Where is Gao Zhisheng?’ will once again rise to shame the Chinese government, and so force them to set him free. Who will orchestrate this chorus on our collective behalf?

I gave evidence to the American Bar’s 2020 Commission to tell them about developments in Europe which touch on their investigation into the effects of globalisation and technology. I predicted that the work currently being undertaken in the EU to resolve the question of lawyers’ electronic identity crossing borders would become a standard, which might in due course become the worldwide template. (The last time I wrote about this I was inundated with complaints from supporters of NO2ID, but I am hoping that their monitoring systems will not pick up this blog if I do not actually put the words i……y and c..d together in a sentence.) I also told them that the radical cross-border movement provisions for lawyers in the EU work very well, and so they should not listen to the doomsayers telling them that civilisation will end if they let more foreign lawyers into the US. But the topic in which they were most interested was the outcome of the Akzo Nobel case. They cannot understand why an in-house counsel should not be given legal professional privilege. ‘What has the independence of the lawyer got to do with it?’ I was asked – ‘Surely it is all about encouraging client candour.’ But I pointed out that in the US there are also rules as to which lawyers acquire the privilege and which do not. For instance, there is a well-known case being litigated in the US now where an in-house counsel for Gucci has been deprived of privilege because he was not registered with his bar: that happens to be one of their rules (whereas Akzo Nobel’s in-house counsel was a member of the bar, but that has not so far saved him here in the EU – the final decision is due on 14 September).

At the opening ceremony, the outgoing president of the American Bar gave a speech in which she illustrated our love for freedom through the metaphor of friends on a Facebook page. It was interesting that Facebook has come so far as to be used in that context – but unfortunately the metaphor soon collapsed under the weight of detail placed on it. The keynote speaker was David Boies, who is one of the US’s leading lawyers. He appeared for Al Gore in Gore v Bush, which he lost – but he was recently a leader of the team that won the fight to oppose Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in California. When he mentioned the case, there were whoops and applause from the audience, apart from the elderly and friendly couple next to me, who sat on their hands. He gave an impressive speech on the rule of law (what else these days?) and the shortcomings of the American justice system, but the most impressive part of it was that he stood centre stage without a note, and spoke in perfect sentences and paragraphs for more than 40 minutes.

We had an interesting meeting with the Section of Science and Technology. We are usually way behind the US in the use of technology, but it was heartening to note that they are also struggling with issues like virtual law firms, outsourcing, lawyer-rating sites, electronic identity and cloud computing, and are no nearer magical answers than we are.

San Francisco was its usual chilly, foggy self. During our stay, a German tourist was shot by a stray bullet from a teenage gunfight, leading to a car chase that ended outside our hotel. The hills were steep, the views were beautiful, the food was often good – but I am happy to be back in Brussels.

Jonathan Goldsmith is the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), which represents over 700,000 European lawyers through its member bars and law societies

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