The changing nature of the law and the conduct of lawyers give the public understandable pause. We must not, however, fall prey to the public’s cynicism. We must instead expect more of our profession. There is a limit to how far an individual lawyer can elevate the bar as a whole. What a lawyer can do, as argued above, is educate the public–at the very least in the person of his or her clients–and personally raise standards by living up to a code of conduct beyond what is “enforceable.” This responsibility is not confined to attorneys in private practice. The others who operate in or around the legal framework–judges, prosecutors, juries, witnesses, public officials, and the press–must also educate themselves, and others, and apply higher standards of conduct to their own behavior.
Soon-to-be-announced Supreme Court nominee Hon. Sonia Sotomayor (with Nicole Gordon), Returning Majesty to Law and Politics: A Modern Approach, 30 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 35, 49 (1996).
This is going to be an interesting couple of weeks. SCOTUSblog has a nice outline of what we have in store, and what the plans of attack will be.
[...] under: followup, lawsandsausages, politics, theroad — Andy @ 11:04 am As a followup to Monday’s post, head over to the blog Ex(c)lusive Rights to see an impressive list of all of the copyright/soft-IP [...]
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