A friend loaned me a week old copy of the New Yorker. It includes a 12 pg article on the Dickie Scruggs scandal in MS. The abstract for the article can be found here. It's really a compelling read, especially if you want a nicely written account of MS networking.
For me the article further reinforces the fact/prejudice that I have yet to meet a lawyer that I admire (I can think of a couple of folks who might fit the bill if I knew them better, but...), although Judge Lackey sounds like an admirable fellow. And yet, the article troubles me so much that it almost makes me want to go to law school. Reasons? I don't really have those yet, but here are some influencing factors:
I have a pretty odd perspective on the law, coming as it does, in part, from Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Anthony Trollope's novels, and a host of friends, my age and older, who are lawyers from a range of law pedigrees (Stanford, Berkeley, University of MS), etc. So, first of all, I'm not much enamored with worshiping the legal system. I see the system as an ad hoc attempt to keep things civil, and there's little about it that endears it to any higher degree (please don't tell me that it is about justice!). What makes it interesting is the sort of ongoing cultural debate that it represents. Law and economics are the new religious language of secular culture (see for example Economics as Religion by Nelson). It's the higher framework that we all seem to agree on, the one "system" that we all allow to shape our daily lives. Legality almost implies morality for much of the population (perhaps particularly for lawyers). "It's not like he did anything illegal..." It's the objectivity that finds its way into a pluralist culture, and even that objectivity is elusive.
So I have a fascination with the notion of working with the law first-hand from an outsider's point of view. "Outsider" because, as I mentioned, I have no faith in the law. I don't see the law as the moral authority in modern life. Nor do I see law as the mechanism by which societies problems are ironed out. I'm no determinist. The right legal system will not magically make the world a better place. Environmental law will not save the environment. Human rights law will not save humanity. The average lawyer/social scientist would do well to at least digest MacIntyre's critique of management of human institutions in After Virture even if they do not find it debilitating. So I wonder if there would be a place for someone who at least purports to share many fewer assumptions about how the world works and what it is that the law is all about.
I come laden with theological assumptions, one of which is that lawyers have no business living in luxury (see Chrysostom, and nearly every other Church Father on the topic of wealth). You don't see many ascetic lawyers.
How many folks do you reckon are out there practicing law with this sort of theological bent? I reckon the number is in the hundreds.
I'm sure this interest is just a phase. On the other hand, I do like to argue...
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3 comments:
We are sort of schizo about the law. On the one hand it is sometimes the only basis of morality as you say. On this end something that does not break the law has not even come close to the threshold of being immoral. On the other it is seen as a completely separate "formal" entity, as reflected in the debate over whether and how much we should "legislate morality." Our founding fathers - Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero - could never have imagined a legal system that did NOT legislate morality. For its very purpose (especially for Aristotle) was to create virtuous citizens. Indeed there could be no virtue outside the laws of the city.
Don't see many ascetic lawyers?
Try checking out your local public defender or legal services lawyer.
To my anonymous commenter:
The practice of self-denial (i.e., asceticism) is not quite the same thing as being denied a particular practice (e.g., luxurious living). So, while many types of lawyer may only eek out a solidly middle-class existence in stark contrast to their corporate colleagues, I don't think it is entirely fair to call this "asceticism".
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