Law Commons^™

Professionalism And Community: A Response To Terrell And Wildman, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

Professor Terrell and Mr. Wildman have earned our gratitude with their sober, thoughtful, lucid, and honest contribution to the ongoing discussion of professionalism. They have examined the problems with a sharp and critical eye, placed them in a social and historical perspective, and offered modest but genuinely helpful suggestions for solving them. They are quite free from the obfuscation and bombast that often appear when people address this difficult subject. Best of all, they have resisted the temptation to draw an invidious distinction between a profession and a business - a distinction that is often presented in ways that no …

Inaugural Howard Lichtenstein Lecture In Legal Ethics: Lawyer Professionalism As A Moral Argument, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The recurrent movement to call or recall lawyers to professionalism is a moral argument. It is an argument made to individual lawyers, a claim among lawyers, that professionalism has to do with being a good person.

I see two aspects to the claim that professionalism is a moral value: one aspect says to a person "be professional." It is an admonition to virtue. The other aspect says to a person, "be in the profession—be of it," with an appeal that seems familiar from other admonitions we have heard to align ourselves with groups that are supposed to make us better …