With Great Power (Part 2)

In yesterday's post I talked about the power that lawyers, by virtue of their profession, have and the responsibility to use that power for the good of all. I also talked about how the legal profession tends to be rather unethical, as a result of the way that law school is taught. Today I want to talk about what that means for anyone trying to be a Catholic, and a lawyer.

There are some days when I feel like a Catholic cannot be a lawyer and remain a Catholic. For example, I had a professor tell a class that "There will be times when your personal values conflict with what your client wants you to do. As long as it isn't against the law and doesn't violate your professional obligations, you should do what your client wants. Even if you have a personal ethical dilemma, you need to remember it's not about you; it's about what the client wants. You have a duty to do what the client wants." I've had several Profs tell me that, and spoken with enough practitioners to see that it is going to be an issue throughout my career.

I just don't know how that can be reconciled with my Catholic faith. If I believe that something is wrong, because that's what my faith teaches, how can I help my client do that, even if it is not illegal? As a lawyer, I will have both ethical obligations to serve my client, and the duty to live out my Catholic faith. Obviously my faith has to come first, but what does that mean to my legal career? That is the issue that I seem to be wrestling with.

I think an example is needed, and the best one I can come up with is family law. I know that I am going to be required to do some family law in my first few years, and that will include some divorces. However, I also know that JPII stated that Catholic lawyers should refrain from aiding in divorces. How can I help a couple divorce when I believe, as a matter of faith, that nothing we do on earth can set aside a union blessed and created by God?

And yet, I feel that law is what I am supposed to do with my life. I believe my prof was right when he said we will have a lot of power and can do a lot of good. So, I guess that means I will just have to keep going, and when ethical dilemmas arise, I will have to trust that God will show me a way through the dilemma. But, as I told a classmate in my first year, my faith comes first, and I will not compromise it. Not for anyone or anything.

I realize these two posts have been rather personal and lack a lot of practical value. What I hope the readers can take from this is the importance of knowing your lawyer, and knowing where they stand on ethical issues. There are lawyers who are unethical, and you don't want them representing you. When you choose a lawyer, remember that you are the one hiring the lawyer, not the other way around. Feel free to question them, and give them hypothetical scenarios to figure out where they stand. It's your right to know where they stand, so you can know where you stand. This advice applies to any professional you deal with- accountants, dentists, doctors etc. The other thing you need to remember is to never give people more power than they deserve. Just because someone is a professional, or in a position of authority, is no reason to simply accept what they say. Question everything, and never let anyone brush you off without answering your questions.

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” (Part 1)

Yes, I've stolen the post's title from Spiderman, but hear me out. One of my profs has spent the last two years telling us about the power we will have as lawyers. I've been reflecting on that for the past few days. If he is correct (and he's given us enough anecdotes that I think he is) I will have the opportunity to do great good. I will graduate with 119 other people, and, as lawyers, we have that same opportunity to do great good. My concern is will we (and the grads from the 19 other Canadian Law Schools) use that power for good or evil? For better or for worse, lawyers form the core of the Canadian political system. They are the politicians, and perhaps more importantly they are the policy advisors who draft legislation. They are also the people who become the judges who interpret (and rewrite the law). There is a lot that they, and soon, I can do, if we choose to act in an ethical manner.

However, the sad truth (based on societal perceptions of the legal profession and my own observations) is that the profession doesn't do a lot of good. In fact, I think it could be said we are responsible for a lot of evil in the world. A year or so ago I ran across this article by Patrick J. Schiltz. It's titled "On Being a Happy, Healthy and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy and Unethical Profession" Though it's an American piece, I think it's very relevant for Canadian lawyers as well. He begins the article saying:

Dear Law Student:
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the profession
that you are about to enter is one of the most unhappy and unhealthy
on the face of the earth—and, in the view of many, one of the
most unethical. The good news is that you can join this profession and
still be happy, healthy, and ethical. I am writing to tell you how.

It's a long article, but that paragraph essentially sums up the whole thesis of the paper, but for anyone wanting to know what legal life is really like, I suggest reading it. Here are some nuggets:

"And because your life as a lawyer will be filled with the mundane, whether you practice law ethically will depend not upon how you resolve the one or two dramatic ethical dilemmas that you will confront during your entire career, but upon the hundreds of little things that you will do, almost unthinkingly, each and every day."

"The system does not want you to apply the same values in the workplace that you do outside of work (unless you're rapaciously greedy outside of work); it wants you to replace those values with the system's values. The system is obsessed with money, and it wants you to be, too. The system wants you—it needs you—to play the game… It is very difficult for a young lawyer immersed in this culture day after day to maintain the values she had as a law student. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, young lawyers change."

"Unethical lawyers do not start out being unethical; they start out just like you—as perfectly decent young men or women who have every intention of practicing law ethically. They do not become unethical overnight; they become unethical just as you will (if you become unethical)—a little bit at a time. And they do not become un- ethical by shredding incriminating documents or bribing jurors; they become unethical just as you are likely to—by cutting a corner here, by stretching the truth a bit there."

A few years ago, I ran into an interesting opinion on why lawyers become unethical. It's because of the way we are taught in law school. We spend three years learning how to twist the law to our own purpose. The legal system is an adversarial one, and as lawyers we have to be zealous advocates for our clients- that's what they teach us. But that means we spend three years learning how to find loopholes in the law. That's what clients pay us for. If that's what we are taught, is it any wonder that the profession lacks ethics?

This post is ending up longer than I expected, so I'm going to split it into two parts. I've tried to establish that the profession has problems with ethics that stem from the entire law school program, and tomorrow I'm going to write about some of my experiences with these ethical difficulties. Most of my classmates don't see ethical issues, but I think that as a Catholic, I have spent more time thinking about these ethical difficulties and what they will mean for my life, and how I can practice ethically.

Chilling Class

In reading about euthanasia, especially the Latimer decision, what has always stuck out to me is how quickly people sympathize with Robert Latimer and ignore Tracy Latimer. (For anyone not familiar with the case, Tracy was Robert's 12 year old daughter who suffered from cerebral palsy. He killed her to "end her suffering" by piping carbon monoxide into the cab of his truck, and was convicted of 2^nd degree murder). See here to read the case. However, I have never really discussed the case with anyone who wasn't anti-euthanasia.

Until today.

In Disability and the Law.

With 18 law students.

Who will eventually be in the position to shape policy and legislation and maybe even interpret the law.

And all I can say is that I was chilled by the absolute callousness of the discussion. Nobody wanted to judge what Robert Latimer did. One said that he couldn't begin to imagine how hard the decision must have been, and that he was sure Latimer only did it out of love. Another said that the case left out an essential fact; that "Tracy was suffering unbearably and her parents tried to get help for her, but no one would give it." This is a law student, who presumably read the case, and the article we were discussing. In that, it was quite clear that Tracey's parents viewed further surgeries, which would have eased her pain, to be mutilations they couldn't support. But yeah, the essential fact that there was nothing anyone could do to ease her suffering was left out. Grrr! Selective reading anyone?

And no one wanted to talk about it from Tracey's perspective. I find that interesting, because in the very first class of the year, the professor mentioned that one of the things that hurts people with disabilities the most is the fact that they suffer from "benign neglect." That is, we make policies and decisions based on able-bodied persons without thinking of the impacts on persons with disabilities. And he encouraged us always consider what the impact of a decision is on people with disabilities. But apparently we don't have to do that when we are talking about euthanizing persons with disabilities because they aren't autonomous and able to consent. I'm not making this up!

One of the things we are taught in law school is that we need to open our minds to consider all elements of the issue, right from the basics, but in this class, everyone just assumed that there is such a thing as a "life unworthy of living." In fact, several people used that exact phrase to discuss the Latimer and Rodriguez cases, and the euthanasia/assisted suicide debate in general. And yet, doesn't that phrase implicitly assume its premise; the very thing we are taught not to do?

These are the same people who dismissed the Hendin and Foley (106 Mich. L. Rev. 1613 2007-2008) report on Assisted Suicide in Oregon as "completely biased." Apparently Hendin and Foley are wrong to advocate for palliative care because that assumes everyone wants palliative care, and don't really want to die.

These are the same people who spent 15 minutes discussing whether suicide can actually be the "logical, reasoned and rational choice." We had to ask this because, as lawyers we have to start from the basics and question everything. They analogized choosing suicide to choosing to refuse treatment.

These are the same people who agreed the Supreme Court of Canada is a conservative institution because of the elites who are appointed to it, and believe that the courts judgments reflect how society used to be, not how it is today.

I could go on about this, but you get the idea. I was absolutely horrified by the entire discussion, even more so when I remembered that these are the people who will help you draft your will, power of attorney and advanced health directive. These are the people who will run for and win political office at all levels of government. These are the people who will become civil servants and draft legislation. These are the people who will be appointed to the bench to interpret the law.

Is anyone else chilled by this?

The Red Mass

The St. Thomas More Lawyer's Guild had its annual Red Mass tonight. It's a mass where lawyers, judges, politicians and law enforcement personnel gather to pray for the outpouring of Holy Spirit on all who are involved in the administration of justice. I went last year too, but tonight I heard the most AMAZING homily I have ever heard. The Roman Catholic Bishop and the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop co-celebrated, but the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop gave the homily. He's newly appointed to the diocese, and I've never heard him speak before, but he was amazing.

The mass had the who's who of the local legal profession in attendance- the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal, several other justices, the provincial attorney general, a city councilor, the superintendant of city police, the dean of the law school, several QC's and a whole host of lawyers and law students. Last year's homily by the RC bishop was pretty wishy washy and feel good- about how we should all help those in need and use our legal skills for the benefit of all. There was absolutely no comparison with this year's homily. I know that I had the stupidest looking grin on my face, and it just got bigger as the homily went on.

He started the homily by referencing Bill C-38 (same sex marriage) and moved quickly to talk about how moral relativism pervades our society, and how as Catholics and lawyers we have a duty to use our God given talents in the law to work to defend objective truth and to show that there is objective truth in our the way we live our lives. He then spoke about the inherent dignity of every human being, and how we have a duty to ensure the law recognizes this. He stated that life is more than a human right; it is part of our human dignity that comes from Christ. I am doing a terrible job of paraphrasing his homily, but essentially he told everyone there that to be Catholic means that they have to reject relativism and work to promote human dignity in all forms of human life (including the unborn, disabled and terminally ill). I have never, ever heard a priest, let alone a bishop spend an entire homily on the inherent dignity of all humans. This homily was an exhortation to follow church teachings, and it was directed at a crowd that is rather hostile to that message. (I heard mutterings and whisperings all around me)

The Bishop was an amazing witness of the gospel message. I spoke with him after mass, and he said he wasn't sure what to speak about- he said it was intimidating getting up before the chief justice to speak when he has no legal training, but the Holy Spirit must have inspired that homily, because there was no hesitation in the message- just a confident priest speaking to his flock. And if people don't like the message, that's just too bad for them. If they are going to call themselves Catholic, the least they can do is follow church teachings. I told the Bishop how much I appreciated hearing his homily. It makes it much easier to be a Catholic lawyer in a secular world.

I don't often hear a homily that sticks with me like this one did, and when I do hear one, I am reminded of how much I love the church. There is objective truth, and relativism is wrong. I have been so impressed with bishops lately- they have been speaking out about life issues with increasing regularity this year- especially the US Bishops. All I can say to end this is God Bless the bishop and all priests, religious and laity who speak the truth without hesitation or fear.