The legal profession under the spotlight

By Atty. Eduardo T. Reyes III

With the ongoing impeachment trial, the legal profession is once again thrust into the spotlight.

Legal luminaries are closely dissecting not only the demeanor of the witnesses but also the strategy of the handling lawyers. Even laypersons are actively weighing in. Across the nation, citizens remain glued to their screens, catching every blow-by-blow development live from the Senate hall.

Impeachment proceedings are unique. As aptly described in Francisco v. House of Representatives (G.R. No. 160261, November 10, 2003), they are sui generis—neither strictly criminal, civil, nor administrative. At their core, they are about public accountability. That truth is beyond doubt.

Yet, because due process must be strictly observed in all legal proceedings, ensuring compliance always devolves upon the lawyers. As complex constitutional and legal issues inevitably arise, fierce debates follow. With one side arguing one way and the other pushing the opposite direction, the legal profession takes center stage.

This environment recalls a profound observation by former US Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer in his book The Court and The World (2016):

“The legal profession has three parts: the judges, the lawyers, and the academics. When the system works well, it works iteratively. The judges decide cases on the basis of the bar’s briefs, which in turn, rest, not just upon experience, but also upon research, articles, and treatises written by academics; and the academics base their work in part upon court decisions, amalgamated and criticized in light of research, which in turn feeds back to the bench through the bar, in principle producing better decisions.”

This iterative engine keeps the legal profession alive, coherent, and evolving.

To this columnist, while the courtroom is where justice is formally adjudicated, its true measure is found in its impact on society. Therefore, justice actually begins in the classroom.

The “academics” comprise more than just law professors. They include law students who deep-dive into jurisprudence, debate theories, and recite cases in class. They are also the lecturers who distill complex, congealed case law for bar review sessions and Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) seminars.

Next come the “lawyers.” After sorting through raw facts, they rely on the research refined by academics to craft their arguments before the court. This skill demands absolute clarity of thought in both ascertaining facts and interpreting law. A stellar trial attorney is, above all, one who comes to court thoroughly prepared.

Finally, we look to the courts. Here, judges must weigh evidence. While the Rules of Evidence have been heavily invoked in the current impeachment trial, we must remember that trials are fundamentally a search for the truth. John Henry Wigmore, a premier authority on evidence, famously quipped that “any rule should stand as a suggestion rather than a dictate.”

Furthermore, our own jurisprudence dictates that a court’s “duty is to dispel any vestige of doubt rather than indulge in subtle distinctions” (Guyamin v. Flores, G.R. No. 202189, April 25, 2017). Resorting to “procedural hairsplitting” leads justice nowhere. Unfortunately, the ongoing impeachment trial has seen an excess of this tactical hairsplitting. Thus the challenge to the impeachment court is to look past technicalities in favor of substantive justice.

The ongoing impeachment trial is the ultimate stress test for our legal institutions. It forces us to ask: Will the iterative cycle that Justice Breyer envisioned hold steady under political pressure?

When the spotlight eventually fades, the public’s faith in the rule of law will depend on how well these three pillars—the academy, the bar, and the bench—collaborated to unearth the truth. In moments of historical crisis, the legal profession must prove that it is not merely a theater of procedural games, but a robust guardian of public accountability.

(The author is the senior partner of ET Reyes III & Associates (ETRIIILaw)– a law firm based in Iloilo City. He is a litigation attorney, a law professor, MCLE lecturer, bar reviewer and a book author. Among the books he authored is “Law on Property and Essentials of Land Registration [2024 Edition]” which was on the bestseller’s list in online shops for several months. In 2026, he published his second major legal textbook titled “Comprehensive Reviewer on Persons and Family Relations.” His website is etriiilaw.com).