Monday, May 3, 2010

Professional Responsibility

I've got my first final on Thursday, and it covers my Professional Responsibility class. It shouldn't be too arduous to study for it, cuz it's only a two-credit course. As the joke goes...

Layperson: "Hey *UT Law Student*, I hear you're required to take a professional responsibility course in order to graduate."

UT Law Student: "Yeah, we hafta take 86 credits in total, two of which must cover ethics and a lawyer's responsibilities to his client."

Layperson: "Yeah, that sounds about right."


Anyways, in reviewing for the test, I remembered an anecdote (or perhaps merely an old joke) that our professor told us in the process of explaining both the obligations a lawyer owes his client and limitations on these obligations: "An attorney was defending a man on trial for manslaughter. The case ended up going to trial, and the man was found guilty on all charges. After the foreman finished reading the verdict, the man turned to his lawyer and said, 'well, what do we do now?' The lawyer replied, 'well, now you go to jail and I go home to my family.'"

Most everyone in the class laughed. I have no larger point to make, but I wonder how many of us would have laughed had we been told that joke a few months before we had started our 1L years.

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