So Rand Rover: in your view, what, if anything, is the effect of Rule 6.1 ?
Objectivism: A sociopathy playing dress-up in Philosophy’s attic.
Look, this argument is not on point. I am sure Rand Rover agrees with the value of keeping one’s word. His objection here is that he denies that Rule 6.1 has any particular effect along those lines; he does not, in other words, agree that he’s broken his word.
So the argument should focus on why he’s mistaken, not castigate him for doing something he doesn’t agree he’s done.
And to RR, I’ll ask again: what, if anything, is the effect of Rule 6.1? Is it a nullity?
Let’s imagine that the drafters of the code wished to impose a requirement to perform pro bono on all lawyers, but did not wish to impose any penalty for not doing so. We can imagine many reasons this might be so. They may not, for example, have wished to penalize a solo practitioner who is barely making ends meet. They may have feared that other valid reasons might exist but been afraid of being unable to create an exhaustive list of valid exceptions. So they might well have said: We wish to impose a requirement on every lawyer to perform pro bono work, except when your financial or workload circumstances make that difficult or impossible, and as officers of the court we trust you to be the judges of when that point is reached.
Let’s assume, arguendo, that the above is the intended result. What language might they have drafted to effect such a belief?
Binarydrone: I went over this exact point with Mr. Excellent. If you want to believe that I have some cosmic moral duty to do pro bono, then that’s fine, I just happeb to disagree. If you try to say that I am breaking my oath, then you are wrong. The problem is that you don’t see the difference between those two things.
Bricker: I don’t know. What do you think? The effect is not to make me in violation of an oath I swore if I don’t do pro bono work. I don’t care about any effect beyond that for purposes of this thread because that is the argument I’m rebutting.
Jayjay: I’m not an Objectivist (for one thing, I don’t think Rand actually crossed the is-ought divide).
Your question is nicely worded Bricker. Too bad the answer amounts to:
“I dunno and I don’t care. What do you think?”
I think that if the committee set out to craft language to give effect to the sense I laid out above, the rule they came up with might look very much like the current rule does.
So my argument to you is that you are misinterpreting the rule into a nullity.
Okay, hang on. Lemme get this straight. I’m getting two things from RR:
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If he works pro bono, or if he works a non-pro bono case, he makes the same amount of money. (Assuming same amt. of time involved.) He does not, personally, suffer any financial reduction as a result of working pro bono.
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He has a little girl whom he apparently loves, and prefers to spend time with her.
So … he takes the time to start a thread, reply constantly, and monitor eleven fucking pages of posts, instead of spending time with his daughter, in order to defend a position that brings him no monetary gain and prompts people to point out horrible things about his character? Did I … miss something?
Rand Rover, The thing is, though, that you have a professional responsibility to do pro bono work. That is a black and white statement. What do you think that it makes you, as a professional, if you refuse to live up to your professional responsibilities?
He’s a rebel who doesn’t play by the rules! When they come after him for their pro bono consultation, the only thing they’ll find is a can of whup-ass!
Also, I am not sure what you are reading that leads you to believe that I am seeing some sort of a cosmic moral duty. I do see the distinction that you are trying to make. Really.
what I am saying is that your profession has a clear cut set of obligations and expectations. As far as I can see you seem to feel that the obligation parts apply to you because they have some consequences for not complying and that the expectations part you can take or leave as you wish.
And in a way it is really pretty neat to see this laid out for me here. Because it is a glaring example of what people are talking about when they talk about the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law. I must also admit that your way of thinking is pretty alien to me. Like you can have a pretty clear idea of what is expected of you, choose to not do it and then somehow rationalize doing this all the while reaping the benefits of belonging to the very organization who has set forth these standards. I confess that if I behaved like that I would have trouble sleeping at night.
That’s obviously because you’re a liberaldouche.
Your longer post snuck in there–this was just a reply to your shorter post.
I think it would be very simple to craft a provision as you described it–the language would be something like “a lawyer must aspire to do pro bono.” Or, to use more contractual type language, the rules could say that a lawyer must use his/her reasonable best efforts to do pro bono. Then the rules would need to rpovIde that a lawyer would be subject to some penalty if it were shown that they didn’t aspire or use their RBEs to do pro bono.
If that’s what the rule said, I would clearly be in violation and would have sworn an oath I had no intention of upholding.
Whoa. That’s gonna leave a mark!
ARTICLE VIII. ILLINOIS RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT OF 2010
https://www.iardc.org/newrules2010.htm
SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS
RULES ON ADMISSION AND DISCIPLINE OF ATTORNEYS
ARTICLE VII.
PART B. REGISTRATION AND DISCIPLINE OF ATTORNEYS
Rule 756
http://www.iardc.org/rulesSCT.html
So there we have it. There is no penalty for Rand Rover:
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failing to meet his “responsibility” to provide pro bono services,
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failing “to demonstrate good character and fitness to practice law” through providing pro bono services,
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failing to participate in pro bono “efforts of the bar [that] as a whole are essential to the bar’s maintenance of professionalism,”
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failing to provide pro bono services that are “an integral part of a lawyer’s professionalism,”
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failing to provide alternate pro bono services in lieu of pro bono representation, such as “training and monetary contributions,”
as long as he faithfully reports his failure to offer pro bono services each year in his “annual registration with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.”
Rand Rover, do you agree with my conclusion that you have failed to meet your professional responsibilities with regard to pro bono services, and that there is no penalty for such failure because “it is not possible to articulate an appropriate disciplinary standard regarding pro bono and public service?”
That’s not quite crafting the provision as he described it, though - his idea was:
Adding a penalty for noncompliance was exactly the result he was trying to avoid.
Well, Bricker said “impose a requirement,” and he said he didn’t want penalties for not doing pro bono, so I assumed he meant there must be penalties for not trying to do pro bono. Otherwise, it’s not a requirement.
Clearly, the aspirational urging towards pro bono work should not involve any actual penalties. One is invited to be a better human being, there is no just sanction possible, the crime and the punishment are as one.
Ooh, I like it when you talk dirty, luci.
You (and others) ever stop to think why you call people sociopaths and other dirty words when they don’t voluntarily give you (or others) their property or their time? You ever think the only reason you are doing that is because you are trying to force them to give it to you (or others)? You ever think the reason you resort to force is that Ýou don’t have anything you can (or are willing to) give up for my propertty or time in a fair exchange?
It’s really sad that all I want to do is order my life around making fair exchanges instead of force and just for that you idiots give me grief.
More than anything it is probably human’s ability to cooperate with each other in a society and to look out for the groups interests as well as their own personal interests that has allowed up to become the dominant animal on the planet. So when we encounter a person, like yourself, that seems to be incapable of seeing beyond his personal needs and hungers we see a person that is giving nothing to the overall survival of the human species. You are more than happy to reap the benefits that have come from all of this cooperation that has occurred and unwilling to give anything back. Moreover you seem pitifully myopic and unable to see the big picture. Like when you give some of your resources to another you are also helping society as a whole produce more and, by extension, participating in a system that will ultimately have more to offer you and your progeny.
Simply stated, your model of thinking would be unworkable on a large scale and would result in a lot of misery and needless suffering. So you are sort of a parasite. Taking from society and contributing nothing. People tend to have a less than favorable view of this.
And yet, the only obligations that you apparently recognize as real are those which involve an externally imposed penalty, i.e. force.