The morality of corporate lawyering

Prompted by an earlier post by yours truly, Dave Hoffman makes a great observation:

The big idea to agree with here is that it is a terrible fact that law deans, and law professors, continually push out the message that corporate lawyering is a less moral & desirable career path than “public interest” lawyering. The reason isn’t that it makes students feel guilty (though it does) but that those students, when in practice, are probably less likely to be ethical because they’ve been told they’ve “sold out.”

I noticed this last semester in my corporations class. When asked whether they would draft ethically troublesome documents, most students professed to say that they would. Why? Because by going into big first practice in the first instance, they’d have already decided to be ethically gray. When deans (and well-meaning liberal professors) reinforce the idea that corporate practice is “corrupting and essentially random and beyond your control, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it”, students are more likely to let the situation corrupt them. If instead academics were to celebrate the pro-social, professional, aspects of corporate practice, perhaps we’d have less situationally-motivated fraud.

Posted on Wednesday, April 09 2008 | Permalink

Professors and Deans dramatically overstate their ability to influence the mindset and standards of their students.

Isn’t it more likely that these students resolved any ethical qualms long ago? Like, when they decided to go to law school, with all that entails?

Posted by  on  04/09  at  05:33 PM

Were there pro-social, professional, aspects of corporate practice, perhaps they could be celebrated.

Let’s face it, the purpose of the corporation is to make a profit.  It is not to enhance the moral and ethical values of the country.

The God of the corporate rule is profit.  If they can do it morally, all to the good.  If not, oh well, as long as it is legal, full steam ahead.

Nothing wrong with making a profit.  But to pretend that doing so always results in moral and ethical behavior is naive.

Posted by  on  04/09  at  11:52 PM

Allan, what a shock to see someone reliably spew the liberal dogma…

Corporations provide millions of jobs, put food on the table, and pay taxes to support your beloved social justice programs.  That sure helps society more than “public interest” law, which is also narrowly tailored to the progressive definition of what public interest means (capitalism bad, government and socialism good - power to the people!). 

Would a conservative group trying to reform government or the law qualify as public interest? Why not?  My law school’s public interest office promotes internships with groups like the ACLU, why not the Institute for Justice or Heritage Foundation as well?

Posted by  on  04/12  at  02:17 PM
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