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The Redemption of the Moral Mandate of the Profession of Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2015

Jerome E. Bickenbach
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Extract

The traditional sociological model of professions identifies both a structural and a moral component. The structural component consists of the apparatus of selfgovernance, which in the case of the profession of law takes the form of law associations with delegated legislative authority over membership and disciplinary functions. Implicit in the institutional apparatus of self-governance are two claims characteristic of professions, that they embody an expertise mastered only after substantial intellectual training and practical experience, and that the profession is autonomous, both with respect to state regulation and market forces. Expertise and autonomy are functional aspects of professions as social collectivities; but, with slight modification, they become as well features of individual professionals. Thus it is that the practitioner is recognized as an expert, through training and experience, and her clients must place their trust in her since their own lack of expertise prevents them from gvv/8evaluating her services. The practitioner’s services are also autonomous in so far as they are not wholly shaped or wholly dictated by the demands of the client, the regulatory needs of the state, or the pressures of the market.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 51 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1996

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References

1. The distinction between structural and moral components I borrow from Gordon, Robert W. & Simon, William H. “The Redemption of Professionalism?” in Nelson, Robert L. Trubek, David M. & Solomon, Rayman L., eds, Lawyers‘ Ideals/Lawyers‘ Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992) at 230.Google Scholar For the traditional structural-functionalist analysis of professions I have relied on Carr-Saunders, A.M. & Wilson, P.A. The Professions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933);Google Scholar Cogan, Morris “Toward a Definition of Profession” (1953) 21 Harv. Ed. Rev. 48;Google Scholar Dingwall, Robert & Philip, Lewis eds, The Sociology of the Professions (London: Macmillan, 1983);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Durkheim, Emile Professional Ethics and Moral Civics, trans. Brookfield, Cornelia (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Elliott, Philip The Sociology of the Professions (London: Macmillan Press, 1972);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Greenwood, Ernest “Attributes of a Profession” (1957)2 Social Work 44,Google Scholar reprinted in Vollmer, Howard M. & Mills, Donald L. eds, Professionalization (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966) 10;Google Scholar and Parsons>, Talcott “A Sociologist Looks at the Legal Profession” in Essays in Sociological Theory, rev. ed. (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1954) 370 Google Scholar and “Professions” in Sills, D. ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Free Press, 1968) vol. 12 at 536:Google Scholar

2. I am following here the terminology and analysis offered by Solomon, Rayman L. in “Five Crises or One: The Concept of Legal Professionalism, 1925-1960” in Nelson, Robert L. Trubek, David M. & Solomon, Rayman L. eds, supra note 1 at 144.Google Scholar

3. I have developed the notion of a profession’s “moral mandate”—in the case of the nascent profession of planning—in “The Moral Mandate of the 'Profession’ of Planning” (with Sue Hendler) in Thomas, Huw ed., Values and Planning (Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1994) 162.Google ScholarPubMed

4. Butler, Joseph, Five Sermons (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts, 1956) at 82.Google Scholar

5. I am thinking here, of course, of the American Bar Association’s 1986 Commission on Professionalism Report, In the Spirit of Public Service: A Blueprint for the Rekindling of Lawyer Professionalism.

6. Talcott Parsons, “A Sociologist Looks at the Legal Profession”, supra note 1.

7. Ibid, at 384

8. Tawney, R.H. The Acquisitive Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1948) at 93.Google Scholar

9. Ibid, at 94.

10. A sampler of this critique (but only that) is as follows: Abel, Richard L. American Lawyers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989);Google Scholar Auerbach, Jerold S. Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976);Google Scholar Bankowski, Zenon & Mungham, G. Images of Law (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976);Google Scholar Bledstein, Burton J. The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: Norton, 1976);Google Scholar Collins, Randall, The Credential Society (New York: Academic Press, 1979);Google Scholar Freidson, Eliot, “The Theory of Professions: State of the Art” in Dingwall, Robert & Lewis, Philip eds, The Sociology of the Professions (London: Macmillan, 1983) at 19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gordon, Robert W. “Legal Thought and Legal Practice in the Age of American Enterprise, 1870–1920” in Geison, Gerald L. ed., Professions and Professional Ideologies in America (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983) at 70;Google Scholar Halmos, Paul Professionalisation and Social Change (Keele, UK: University of Keele Press, 1973);Google Scholar Illich, Ivan Disabling Professions (London: Marion Boyars, 1977);Google Scholar Johnson, Terence J. Professions and Power (London: The Macmillan Press, 1972);Google Scholar Larson, Magali The Rise of Professionalism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977);Google Scholar Lefcourt, R. Law Against the People (New York: Random House, 1971);Google Scholar Lees, D.S. The Economic Consequences of Professionalism (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1966);Google Scholar Lieberman, Jethro K. The Tyranny of the Experts: How Professionals Are Closing the Open Society (New York: Walker and Co. 1970);Google Scholar Rosenthal, D. Lawyers and Clients: Who’s in Charge (New York: Russell Sage, 1974);Google Scholar Scheingold, S. The Politics of Rights (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1974);Google Scholar Slayton, Philip & Trebilcock, Michael J. eds, The Professions and Public Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978);Google Scholar Witz, Anne Professions and Patriarchy (London: Routledge, 1992);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Young, Michael D. The Rise of Meritocracy (London: Thames and Hudson, 1958).Google Scholar

11. See Auerbach, supra note 10.

12. Kultgen, John Ethics and Professionalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988) at 237.Google Scholar

13. Ostry, Sylvia “Competition Policy and the Self-regulating Professions” in Slayton, Philip & Trebilcock, Michael J., eds, The Professions and Public Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978) at 17.Google Scholar Friedman, Milton has made similar arguments in Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).Google Scholar

14. See Abel, supra note 10, and Abel, Richard L. & Lewis, Philip S.C. eds, Lawyers and Society: The Common Law World (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988).Google Scholar

15. The theme of professional redemption has been the central focus of the following pieces: Frankel, Marvin “The Search for Truth: An Umpireal View” (1975) 123 Univ. of Penn. L. Rev. 1031 Google Scholar; Freidson, Eliot “Professionalism as Model and Ideology” in Nelson, Robert L. Trubek, David M. & Solomon, Rayman L., eds, supra note 1 at 215;Google Scholar Gordon, Robert W. “The Independence of Lawyers” (1988) 68 Boston Univ. L. Rev. 1,Google Scholar and “Corporate Law Practice as a Public Calling” (1990) 49 Maryland L. Rev. 255; Robert W. Gordon & William H. Simon, “The Redemption of Professionalism?” supra note 1; Gutmann, Amy, “Can Virtue be Taught to Lawyers?” (1993) 45 Stan. L. Rev. 1759;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Simon, William H. “The Ideology of Advocacy: Procedural Justice and Professional Ethics” (1978) Wise. L. Rev. 29,Google Scholar “Babbitt v. Brandeis: The Decline of the Professional Ideal” (1985) 37 Stan. L. Rev. 565, and “Ethical Discretion in Lawyering” (1988) 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1083.

16. In particular see Luban, David Lawyers and Justice: An Ethical Study (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

17. Charles, Fried “The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer-Client Relationship” (1976)85 Yale L.J. 1060.Google Scholar

18. See Wasserstrom, Richard “Lawyers as Professionals: Some Moral Issues” (1975) 5 Human Rights Google Scholar and Goldman, Alan H. The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1980).Google Scholar

19. See in particular Luban, David ed., The Good Lawyer (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984) 83,Google Scholar and William H. Simon, “Ideology of Advocacy”, supra note 15.

20. Robert W. Gordon & William H. Simon, supra note 1 at 234.

21. This is William H. Simon’s version of redemption in “Ethical Discretion in Lawyering”, supra note 15.

22. Robert W. Gordon, “Corporate Law as a Public Calling”, supra note 15 at 290.

23. Kronman, Anthony T. The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).Google Scholar