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However, in American, it is not the judge but the lawyer who has power to control the trial. The power is basically belong to the lawyers. The notion the American lawyer argued, made the judge better. So the American civil procedure is also called as a lawyer-dominated system . It is also criticized that lawyers are always intent to distort evidence and make the trail and the modes of discovery more expensive and complex.
2. It is very important for a lawyer to know the difference about appeal in the two legal systems.
In American, parties cannot argue about facts in the appeal. The appeal court only handle the issues of law and the parties have no rights to bring in new evidence. While in Civil Law system, the appeal court can handle both the issues of fact and law, if any party new evidence in the second trial they still have right to bring in. Though it is easy to describe, not complex as the first difference, it is still important to know especially for international legal practice. I will explain the reasons in the next part.
III. Why the two differences above are relevant for international legal practice
In international legal practice, lawyers always meet people from foreign countries or other legal system. People from different culture or different legal system have different value concepts. Generally speaking, one person is used to use his own value concept that derives from his own legal system and culture to judge other legal system or the legal professions. So the legal conflict arises. I think what you think is useless might be useful for others. Use your own value concept to value others’ is incorrect. The lawyers who know the two legal systems well will undertake the role to dissolve the antinomy and promote understanding. It is necessary for the lawyers to realize these significant differences. I hold this for three reasons.
Firstly, clearly know it will make the lawyer easy to understand what your foreign clients expect you to do and explain why your role in litigation is different from the lawyers in their country. Thus will help the lawyer well communicate with the foreign client, keep and attract latent client. For example, American clients will misunderstand the role of a Chinese lawyer. They might think the Chinese lawyers are powerless in litigation, thus it is not necessary to hire a lawyer in litigation and they might debase Chinese legal system. If a Chinese lawyer knows the different role of American lawyers and Chinese lawyers is the common difference between Common law system and Civil law system, and he can clearly explain the lawyer’s function in Civil law system and can tell the client all about these, the American clients will eliminate the misunderstanding towards Chinese lawyers and think this Chinese lawyer are knowledgeable and eloquent. Thus, this client is likely to hold that this Chinese lawyer is competent to handle the legal affairs for him.
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