Ethics

[whoops. i posted before seeing that Rob has already called us out.  and, btw, i once again posted under our moderator account, but this is posted by John Steele, not John Dzienkowski.]

It's been a great conference.  If there's any "problem," it's that there are too many interesting panels at overlapping times.  Brad, Rob, Renee, Alice, Steve and I are here, so LEF has made a good showing -- although admittedly I'm the only one not presenting.

I was just at a panel taking a dark (but realistic, imho) view of the coercive nature of litigation and ADR.  Under that account, offered by Geoffrey Hazard and Dana Irwin in an Aristotelian vein, because the gap between procedural truth and absolute truth is inevitable, the inability of legal ethics to foster absolute justice is to be expected rather than condemned.  It wasn't a defeatist view, but rather one that requires us to focus on process, procedure and related "inside the game" issues.

I'm now at a panel about ethical decision-making in context, including tax lawyers, prosecutors, biglaw business litigators, and immigration lawyers.  Great presentations, which will be gathered in a book edited by Leslie Lavin and Lynn Mather.

Post-lunch, I'm at a similar panel.  Michele DeStefano Beardslee is reporting on the emerging notion of corporate compliance groups being independent of the general counsel.  It sounds like an unnecessary complication to me, but I don't have much deep knowledge of the situation.

Anthony Alfieri presented his response to Anthony Davis on the issue of risk management, and whether it facilitates an erosion of traditional ethical norms.  We've discussed that debate previously here at the blog.  Perhaps I misunderstand Alfieri, but I see risk management as an organizational innovation that serves to reinforce those norms.