Into the Valley of Ethics: Professional Responsibility and Educational Reform

Abstract

In a recent keynote address on professional responsibility, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recounted a well-loved story about a student's first encounter with legal ethics. The professor in one of the core first-year courses was describing a lawyer's tactic that left the student bothered and bewildered. But what about ethics?, the student asked. Ethics, the professor frostily informed him, is taught in the second year.1 For most of its history, however, American legal education has aspired to teach professional responsibility by a more pervasive method.2 This essay charts efforts to realize that aspiration, not just in theory but in practice. Since the mid-1970s, the American Bar Association has required accredited law schools to provide instruction in professional responsibility.3 Although the vast majority have met that requirement through a mandatory ethics course, some schools, including my home institution, Stanford University Law School, have chosen instead to integrate ethical issues into the core curriculum. A still smaller number of schools has combined these approaches. This essay reviews the rewards and the challenges of pervasive ethics initiatives.