Law Commons^™

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 …

The Professional Ethics Of Individualism And Tragedy In Martin Arrowsmith's Expedition To St. Hubert, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was a resolute critic of pretension in American business and in the professions. His only hero story is the story of a physician and research scientist, Arrowsmith (1925).' It is a story that puts up for examination Lewis's prescription for a moral life in the professions in America and, beyond that, it shows what professional life is like. I want to argue here that (1) although the story is useful for lawyers and for legal ethics, Lewis's principal moral prescription, a brief for individualism in professional life, is incoherent. The ethic of individualism, as Lewis grounds it, …