Let’s suppose an attorney has a client who thinks he’s being discriminated against because of his race. For example, a black client is told that no units are currently available in a particular apartment complex.
Would it be unethical to advise the client to have an associate of the “preferred” race “pose” i.e. pretend to be seeking an apartment just to guage the alleged discriminator’s reactions?
They do that all the time. Just recently my school did something like that. They would have a white person and a black person with the same qualifications apply for the same appartmet. Then they would watch and see what happens. But the only problem I have with that is that they’re will be differences. The credit reports will probably be different (I guess they would use people with nothing on their credit reports though). One of the people would have to apply first and then the other person. The landlord may honestly like the other person more then the other, or have a better feeling about one over the other. And countless other variables. But anyways, studies have been done. As for a discrimination case I’m not sure what the protocol is.
BTW have you ever seen the SNL skit where Eddie Murphey dresses up like a white guy.
Yeah, that had to be one of the funniest SNL skits ever.
I’m laughing aloud right now, just thinking about it.
Michael Moore’s “TV Nation” program had a feature where they put a black man (Yaphet Kotto, Emmy-nominated TV star) and a white guy (Louie Bruno, convicted felon) along a New York sidewalk to see which person could get a taxi first. Needless to say, many of the taxi drivers(*) zipped by Kotto and picked up Bruno instead.
(* = To be fair, some drivers did stop for Kotto, but those were mostly black drivers, and they were still outnumbered by the ones who preferred the white customer instead)
The best part of the segment was when Bruno told the drivers to go down a few blocks, where they were met by the TV Nation crew and asked why they didn’t pick up Kotto instead. And after the drivers gave their excuses, they got whammied when they were told about their fare’s arrest record… 
I don’t know why it would be unethical, except that you generally want to control your own investigations, not make your client do the investigating himself. There’s some controvery as to whether “testers” should really be allowed to sue if they’re denied access to some service because it’s unclear they have standing – they suffered no injury because they didn’t really want whatever was there, they only wanted to test the service=provider. But this would merely be evidence-gathering for a potential suit the client already has. That should be fine.
–Cliffy
Nah, the best part was when they tried to even the odds. Since a lot of the cab drivers said, “I didn’t see him!” Moore tried to make Kotto more obvious by putting up a big lighted sign saying, “I NEED A CAB” with an arrow pointing to Kotto. And cabs still drove past him. Then, because perhaps cab drivers were afraid of Kotto, because he’s a big guy and all, they gave him a big bouquet of flowers to hold, to make him seem less threatening.