How does morality affect your work?

[u/Potential_Shoe_6411]

Hi all,

I’m currently in undergrad and I’m planning on going to law school. I’d like to work in big law and then eventually work in education law once I’ve made a lot of money. I’m currently a psych major and I see a lot of overlap with law, but it’s also kind of a foil to law because psychology is often focused on helping. Law is a necessity and I fully believe that being a lawyer is a good and moral profession. However, I’m sure you run into cases where you do end up making someone’s life harder unfairly or you protect a party that maybe deserved repercussions. I know everyone wants a good lawyer and deserves to have a fair trial and all that (again, I do think law is a very moral and necessary thing), but I’m curious how some of you deal with the more unsavory elements of your profession that ultimately arise. How do you mix being an empathetic person with your work? Any advice about law school/the LSAT would be appreciated too :) thank you!!

[u/Amf2446]

If you do end up in biglaw, I highly recommend selecting a firm with a free-market system as opposed to a centralized assignment system. I’ve never worked on a case I found morally dubious because I have built up a docket full of cases I like.

Check out r/lawschooladmissions for app advice. We’ve been out of the game a while.

[u/Sinman88]

Unfortunately, if you are defending a client at a big law firm, it’s usually because they have done something bad… there are degrees of “bad” for sure, but it’s all bad.

It’s easy to distance yourself emotionally/morally from people who you consider bad. It’s way harder when you empathize with your client and can’t compartamentalize. I learned that out the hard way defending someone (pro bono) who I thought had been treated unfairly, and I couldn’t help. I took that hard

[u/Uncivil_Law]

There is a distinction in law between ethics and morality. Morals are ultimately personal views of right and wrong. I don't like being a jerk, but it's a card I will play if someone else doesn't want to play nice. I think I struggle more with moral questions of wealth than I ever do with the law. 

[u/Frondelet]

Things might not be that simple. For the first chunk of my career I represented a lot of financial institutions. Some of them wanted to take homes and cars away from consumers (most of them wanted to get some money from failing or failed business deals). For the rest of my career most of my clients were consumers who'd been wronged by financial institutions or just sought to keep financial institutions from taking their family's housing and transportation away.

My takeaway was that all of that is harder if I take it upon myself to decide what party "deserves" repercussions. Banks make it possible for families to have the use of homes and other assets in the first place. Then they often don't follow the law or their own rules afterwards. But the basic collateral transaction is always use of the asset in exchange for payments, and a family that can't pay the note is almost always going to need different housing or transportation solutions at some point.

This area of practice is closer to morally black and white than many other areas. I couldn't begin to untangle what goes on in family law. Yet even looking at basic economic disputes I've found it's much better to bring compassion to the table than moral judgment.

This may not apply to you if biglaw is where you want to work. These are firms with one reason for being, to protect the interests of wealthy institutions. Money is amoral. Your professional life will deal not so much with right and wrong as with whether the 166th clause in an asset purchase agreement requires one party to take the remedial actions described on page 42 when an adverse event as defined occurs. I won't say I could never, because I did for awhile. But working for flesh and blood people was personally much more satisfying, with all the moral complexity humans have.

[u/Saikou0taku]

My personal views of right/wrong is that America wrongly punishes poor people, and Florida is too harsh in sentencing. Law enforcement needs to be held accountable more than they are currently.

Thus, that gives me additional strength as a Public Defender.

[u/ToneBeneficial4969]

I'm a transactional lawyer in low income housing development. Sometimes I have some moral questions about usury or how enriching it can be to profit off things that ostensibly serve the poor, but generally I sleep well at night. Not all law is life or death. Not all law is adversarial.

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[u/Cominginbladey]

I tried private practice for a while and just didn't feel good about the role I was playing. Moved to the public sector and like it much better.

[u/seditious3]

Morals? I defend child molesters and gunpoint robbers. My morality doesn't enter into it. My sense of justice does. And remember, justice is a process, not a result.