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2007

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

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Moral Judgment And Professional Legitimation, W. Bradley Wendel Jul 2007

Moral Judgment And Professional Legitimation, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this essay I would like to consider the nature of the role of lawyers from the point of view of both jurisprudence and the sociology of professions. From this perspective it is apparent that the judgment characteristic of lawyers' expertise is not primarily the exercise of ethical discretion. Rather, it is the application of legal norms, which may incorporate moral principles by reference, but which are analytically distinct from morality. The task of legal education, and specifically of legal ethics education, might include training lawyers to be better at making moral judgments. In fact, there has been a fairly …