A California appellate court has overturned a $1 million default judgment against an Orange County family lawyer finding that opposing counsel ran afoul of the requirement in the state’s Code of Civil Procedure that parties “cooperate” in bringing an action to trial or disposition.

“We are reluctant to come down too hard on respondent’s counsel or the trial court because we think the problem is not so much a personal failure as systemic one,” wrote Fourth District Court of Appeal Justice William Bedsworth in Tuesday’s 16-page published decision. “They have heard the mantra so often unthinkingly repeated that, ‘This is a business,’ that they have lost sight of the fact the practice of law is not a business. It is a profession. And those who practice it carry a concomitantly greater responsibility than businesspeople.”