Ethical Dilemas

Well my professor just plum forgot about the make up class, and showed up on time for regular class, thoroughly embarrassed to walk in and find a room full of irate students. I can't get too upset, everyone makes mistakes. Although, my mistakes have never resulted in 40 people waking up early to waste an hour of their lives.

On the plus side, she did show up in time to teach us why having sex with clients is bad (except in DC, because this town is full of repressed adulterers in suits. Also with the exception of my prof, the ethics committee in DC is all male).

Apparently this issue can "get really big" and sometimes "it gets really hard." And yes, the whole class giggled like awkward middle school students (complete with a few half-whispered "thats what she said"). Ladies and gentleman, the future of America's legal system. Just think, when you have a serious, personal problem, one of these upstanding, mature individuals will be paid huge sums of money to help you. (At least I hope the huge sums of money thing is true. Oh, and I totally laughed. Unintentional innuendo is funny, ok?)

Yes, these are the deep issues discussed in ethics class. We're also not supposed to lie (in certain scenarios) or blackmail clients or steal. Or pay the living expenses of a poor client to keep them going through the case. After all, we have standards.

No, we don't talk about actual ethical dilemmas. We talk about lawyer dilemmas. Real example: Say you're working a case where your medical expert finds that the plaintiff for the opposing side has a brain aneurysm that could kill him without treatment. Their medical counsel missed this. Should you save the kids life and tell him so he can seek treatment or should you keep it a big secret to help the case of your giant insurance corporation client? Save a life or duty to client? Yes, this is supposed to be a difficult dilemma. This is why people don't like lawyers. And why I hate this class.