*Choose a question.
*Write a 6 page paper in response.
*Answer the question directly – get right to the point.
*Be concise – use only the words you need to get your idea across, avoid rambling.
*Use quotation marks and cite the source when you quote. Cite your source when you paraphrase. *Avoid using outside sources – use sources we discussed together in class.
Note that we read articles on lawyers’ ethics by Green, Rivera-Lopez, Thunder and Loewy. I have written up the questions we came up with in class. I’ve also added a few that students came up with in fall 2018.
1. Do lawyers have moral obligations? Do they have moral obligations to other persons or to institutions? Explore this question – and answer it – with the help of two of the texts on lawyers’ ethics we discussed in class. Be sure to seriously engage with the reasoning in the essays you choose to discuss; and be sure to entertain an objection to the answer you provide.
2. Bruce Green explains that “the legend on the façade of the Department of Justice building… states that ‘the United States wins its case whenever justice is done one of its citizens in the courts” (262). What type of justice is most important for a lawyer to uphold? Retributive justice, compensatory justice, distributive justice, or procedural justice? In answering this question, please make use of my notes on blackboard on justice; please use also two of the articles we discussed in class. Be sure to seriously engage with the reasoning in the essays you choose to discuss; and be sure to entertain an objection to the answer you provide.
3. Is wealth a permissible objective for lawyers? Is it permissible for a lawyer to be primarily concerned with earning a great deal of money? ? Explore this question – and answer it – with the help of two of the texts on lawyers’ ethics we discussed in class. Be sure to seriously engage with the reasoning in the essays you choose to discuss; and be sure to entertain an objection to the answer you provide.
4. Tensions between a lawyer’s obligation to their client and a lawyer’s obligation to justice were discussed in all four of the essays on lawyers ethics we read. Using at least two of the texts, explore a context in which such a tension might arise. How should the tension be resolved? In favor of justice or in favor of the client? Be sure to seriously engage with the reasoning in the essays you choose to discuss; and be sure to entertain an objection to the answer you provide.
5. Is it morally permissible for a lawyer to be an activist and seek to bring about social change through the law? Explore – and answer – this question using two of the texts on lawyers’ ethics. Be sure to seriously engage with the reasoning in the essays you choose to discuss; and be sure to entertain an objection to the answer you provide.
6. Do lawyers make a moral mistake when they help their clients avoid responsibility for their wrong-doing? Are lawyers morally obligated to turn down cases that involve helping in this way? Does helping a client in this way make the lawyer a bad person? Explore one of these questions – and answer it – with the help of two of the texts on lawyers’ ethics we discussed in class. Be sure to seriously engage with the reasoning in the essays you choose to discuss; and be sure to entertain an objection to the answer you provide.