My professional responsibility professor said this in class today during a discussion about attorney advertising rules. Ambulance chasing - handing out business cards at morgues and funerals, showing up aside a tragic multi-fatality accident - is a discouraged activity that falls under these advertising rules. The class discussion, for a while anyway, centered around the legitimacy of ambulance chasing. Why is it reprehensible to be an ambulance chaser? Is it truly reprehensible, or is it at the very core of what it means to be a lawyer?
Here's where the aforementioned quote from my law professor comes in. The two men teaching our Professional Responsibility class are lawyers that deal with attorney ethics/rules violations as the main subject matter of their 9-5s. They are really passionate about upholding the rules and preserving the integrity of the legal profession. These rules cover the whole gambit of personal/professional activity, and often extend far beyond the boundary of professional livelihood deep into one's personal life. Some of the rules, in my opinion, are excessively deontological. For example, one rule dictates that a lawyer has a duty to report professional and personal misconduct of fellow lawyers. If you don't report, then you can be held accountable. I understand how a rule like this promotes honesty and integrity, but it's not as if circumstantial information could, in many instances, mitigate the wrongness of an action. Sometimes, not tattling on someone for a transgression seems to be the best choice. Fans of the "system" would insists that there are procedural safeguards to determine if a transgression should be forgiven. In other words, let the committee vested with the power to assess the violation have the final say in whether or not an action runs afoul of professional ethics. Let them assess the facts of any given situation. My issue with this is that by mandating reporting, it ignores the ability of each of us, as legal professionals, to assess the situation using our own good reason. If we've gotten this far - if we've passed all the character/personality assessments necessary to be allowed to practice - isn't it safe to say that we possess the ability to weigh a difficult situation and act according to our assessment? I think it does. And I think that being allowed our own opinion and right of action makes for a more honest system in the end. It reduces paranoia and increases the likelihood that there will be open dialogue about ethical issues. Instead of people doing shady things behind closed doors for fear of being caught, people will discuss their options with others, allowing for the advice of others to possibly halt unethical actions before they become issues.
Secondly, I don't think that upholding a rigid code of conduct necessarily means that you're standing up for your profession. In a sense, it seems almost over-reactionary. Like a child, when caught doing something naughty, will 'protest too much' in hopes of convincing others they are not guilty. Does having strict rules help to placate feelings of guilt around the reputation of the legal profession? After all, if viewed from a moral perspective, lawyering can be repulsive. Many attorneys make their living on other people's tragedies. Like ambulance-chasers - they (hopefully) care about the emotional well-being of the people they represent, but in the end, its all money.
And that's the point - that it's all money. Just like everything else in this country, the rights of individuals is reduced to economic incentive. Universal healthcare is denounced as being unprofitable. However, last time I checked, the point of healthcare is the health of our country's citizens, not how much money we can make off of their illnesses. Why is ambulance chasing any more morally reprehensible than the activities of the insurance adjuster, whom the attorney is attempting to outwit by his chasing? To me, the answer is that it's not any worse.
"You either care about your profession or you don't."
There is a difference between caring about your profession and caring about the public perception of your profession.
During the class discussion about reporting rule violations, we were often asked to raise our hands to indicate whether or not we thought a hypothetical individual's behavior should be reported, and if reported, if it should be grounds for punishment.
After one particularly even vote - about 50/50 for report or not-report - the professor exclaimed, "Should you report? It's expected of you under the rules. But besides the rules, would you really want a person like this working in a law firm as your partner?" (For informational purposes, the hypothetical individual failed to disclose juvenile misdemeanor charges that his lawyer-uncle helped him dodge.) As he was asking the question, the professor was posturing so as to indicate his assumption that no one would want to work with such a person. A hushed chorus of "no - oh no way - nope" circulated the lecture hall. My voice didn't lend any support. I'd rather work with someone who ducked responsibility when he was 16 years old than with someone who has recently behaved like a child but who is NOT going to be reprimanded because of their ability to play on our confessional-culture - one where you can confess your sins and ::poof:: all the sudden you're "saved." Restored to full humanity! The catch is that the latter individual would not only most likely not be reprimanded, but be lauded as an example for all to follow. The former individual - the 16 year old past transgressor - would be reprimanded and made an example of as an immature, perhaps even unfit, individual.
In conclusion, the gist of this ramble is the contrast between the realities of the legal profession (any many other professions, too) and the conduct rules that a practicing lawyer is expected to uphold. The concreteness of the rules offset and highlight the uneasiness emanating from a profession that knows, all too well, it's own transgressions. How to fix it? Well, how does one fix an innate and fundamental human flaw?
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