Conversation: We learn about ethics, in the scenarios we've been studying, by listening in on the conversation of those who are trying to figure out whether they have done the right thing. For Seymour Wishman, in The Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, it is talking with himself and the reader, about his adversarial zeal in defending a rape client. For Robert Service and Blanders Blakelock, in Diary of a Yuppie, it is a meeting to discuss their strategy in a corporate take over case. With Bowen McCoy in The Parable of the Sadhu, it is discussions he has with his friend, Stephan, who claims they did too little to help a naked sadhu they encountered on an extended trek in Nepal.

Story: We learn about ethics from stories. Wishman tells a story about his encounter with Ms. Lewis, a woman on the receiving end of a brutal, humiliating cross-examination in a rape case, and his efforts to explain his actions and determine whether they were justified. Service uses the meeting with Blanders Blakelock, a senior partner in the firm, to begin to tell a story about his life as a lawyer, and in particular the story of his relationship with Blanders Blakelock who has been his mentor. McCoy tells the story of a Nepal trip, an encounter with a near naked sadhu (holy man) and the decision to continue the journey and leave the sadhu behind.

Encounter: In each of the accounts, conversation and story, are provoked by an encounter with another person, a person who provides a different perspective on the events in question. Indeed, in each of the vignettes, some Other calls the protagonist in the story to account for himself.

Accounting and Giving Reasons: These stories are not just "accounts" of events, but an effort on the part of some person to "account" for what has taken place, a decision made or to be made. With Wishman, the vehemence and anger of Ms. Lewis are an inducement to reflect on his actions and attempt to explain them, to determine whether his actions can be justified. Wishman's accounting for his bruising cross-examination consists of the usual justifications (I was trained to do it; other professionals seem to approve; it was within my professional duty; I didn't think about what I was doing; it was a game and I wanted to win) but his efforts to get to the bottom of what happened pushes him beyond the conventional reasons (it was a matter of control and power; ego-gratification; purposeful limiting of vision; failure to articulate his high ideals about justice).

From Robert Service we hear only the most conventional of explanations for use of hardball tactics on behalf of a client. It is Blanders Blakelock, the senior partner, who objects to Service's proposed tactics, and provides the moral grounds for objection (harm to innocent third parties, personal disdain for the nature of the tactics, honor).

Bowen McCoy is bothered by his encounter with the sadhu, but its seems to be Stephan, his friend, who pushes him to give a more careful accounting of their decision.

In these vignettes we see a striking difference between obvious and easily formulated explanations, and those which lie just beyond the surface. We see ethics work as the protagonist moves from surface to depth, defensiveness to accountability. There are the immediate explanations that come most easily and those which come only from careful reflection (if at all). (In the case of Robert Service, it is not clear what, if anything he learned from his ethics talk with Blanders Blakelock.

We take up ethics when we give "reasons" for the moral choices we make and helps us account for these choices. We do ethics and see ethics at work when we give "reasons" for what we do. In giving reasons we account for the harm that others (and we) attribute to our actions.

Zealousness: In legal ethics there is much talk about zealousness on behalf of our clients' cases and causes. Some law students begin their discussion of Wishman's cross-examination of Ms. Lewis with the notion that what he has done is nothing more than what a "good" lawyer does (and must do). Robert Service makes a similar argument on behalf of his hardball tactics: it's our duty as lawyers to use such tactics. Service also talks about his ambition to become a partner, which is a form of career zealousness. Wishman too talks about what might be called his zealous pursuit of the craft of lawyering--learning what a lawyer needs to know and learning to be good at his craft.

For Bowen McCoy, the zeal is to do something difficult (demanding and physical) -- to traverse a high mountain pass, a pass which has defeated him on a previous mountain climbing venture.

Self-Examination: Ethics calls us to be reflective, to engage in self-examination. Ethics, in the absence of a life devoted to a prescribed moral code, is going to require self-examination. We see ethics at work when we look carefully at ourselves. The only way we are to know ourselves is to examine what we are and who we are. Wishman says: "I had to examine in a disciplined way the sources of my anger, the anger that was peculiar to me rather than to criminal lawyers generally. I decided that one way to begin this examination would be to write about it."

Wishman goes go to say, "I had vague memories, hidden, it seemed, behind many thin, finely spun curtains. I knew I would have to try to draw the curtains back." [Wishman, Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, at 241]

Ethics calls for us to examine and reevaluate the compartmentalized life that makes it possible for us to live the way we do. Wishman's confessions are an attempt to exhume the vague purposes, and ideals, that are guiding and shaping his sense of what he is doing in the practice of law. He acknowledges that the purposes that would redirect him and provide a more coherent ethical basis for his life as a lawyer are vague and ill-defined. But vague as they may be they still represent, Wishman believes, a higher ideal than that exemplified in his humiliation of Mrs. Lewis.

Slowing Down: Ethics slows us down, interrupts routine, habituated patterns of everyday life, and disrupts the placid self-assurance that all is well. We find that old explanations no longer work. Wishman, for example, concludes that he must try fewer cases, must slow down and think about what he is doing.

In slowing down we refocus on purposes (and identities) that get pushed aside in the rush to be successful lawyers. We put our ethics to work, by slowing doing, and seeing ourselves in our choices, seeing that we have choices to make. Wishman says, ""I would have to screen my cases from now on. I had never turned down a case because the crime or the criminal were despicable--but now that would change. I could no longer cope with the ugliness and brutality that had for so long, too long, been a part of my life.

"I also knew that I couldn't deal with the same volume of cases. I couldn't constantly be in court, on my feet, arguing, fighting, struggling to win. I needed to find a way to step back from the aggression of the courtroom battles and the violence that was usually the subject over which those battles were fought." [Wishman, Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, at 241]

Becoming More Criticial: Ethics helps us develop a critical perspective. We begin to see who we are in the "system" and how the "system" has found its way into our character. It is in our puzzling over lawyer ethics that we raise this question about being insiders and holding on to our ethics. Can our ethics ever be anything other than those of the groups in which we live our working lives?

When we work in the "sytem" and take account of "system" needs in our thinking, we assume we are thinking of the "big picture." With a more reflective critical perspective, Wishman finds that protecting the system may be a worthy goal, but it become for him "too narrow and abstract a concept" to provide him "with any comfort." "I had ignored the larger moral and emotional implications of my actions." [Wishman, Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, at 69]

The "system" that trump one's moral sensibilities is a sytem that will devour you.

Making Choices: It is hard to imagine a life as a lawyer without choices and it is in the choices we make that we see ethics at work. Ethics is a matter of making choices. Wishman sees that he is constantly in the process of making choices when he presents himself to a jury and that in all of these choices he is saying something about the kind of lawyer and the kind of person he is. "There is no end," says Wishman, "to the possibilities for self-consciousness. Should I smile? Should I get angry? Should I treat the D.A. with respect or contempt? Should I demand that the jury acquit or should I beg them?" [Wishman, Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, at 70].

Beyond the Personal: It is ethics that links the personal to the social, political and spiritual. Seymour Wishman's distress is personal, but not idiosyncratic. Wishman suggests that his concerns are related to the moral concerns of the the legal profession as a whole. "I sense that my distress was not just a personal matter but revealed some of the painful moral and emotional dilemmas of my profession." [Wishman, Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, at 18]

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