On Lawyers Moral Conduct

From readings, lectures and hearsays, a lawyer is an agent of justice. He has

a tremendous responsibility in the administration of justice. This is his morality,
his duty to the court and to his client. However, a lawyers identity and especially
what others think about his morality is already tainted by ethical problems of our
time. Upon entering into the field of studying law, there is this impression of being
a lawyer is to think like a lawyer, or the word lawyering is like becoming an
amoral agent or a morally neutral professional. This means that his skills,
functions, and everything that he can do for a client are all that matters. Putting it
in a analogy, lawyers like a food delivery guy serves a client to the extent of being
equally unconcerned to the result or character of his role. Whether to deliver food
to a whore in a whorehouse, a delivery guy will proceed, and whether a client is
guilty or not, a lawyers loyalty is to his clients interest regardless of the morality
involved. But I think this is why there is a ethical code of conduct, which is the
Code of Professional Responsibility, that is binding to practicing Filipino lawyers.
Lawyers have positive duties to not employ unlawful means to represent a
client, neglect the performance of his duty to his client, perform unethical conduct,
cooperate in illegal practice of law, etc. These are some of the responsibilities that
the abovementioned code imposes on practicing lawyers. For this reason, the
tainted impression what one must be like as a lawyer is partly inaccurate, as well
as the analogy because the delivery guy can use as a defense his ignorance of a
clients identity or what will be his character if he proceeds on with his tasks but a
lawyer has a also a duty to be aware and be on guard against being tricked by
immoral and dishonest clients and be a part of illegal schemes and misconduct.
The breach of the rules and their duties are tantamount to disciplinary actions and
worse, disbarment. However, in the case of amorality, if this would be discouraged
and only allow that lawyers should only accept and reject cases based on their own
principles and morality it may look as like the system is allowing lawyers to usurp
judicial and legislative process, which are the facilitator of justice and equality and
not ones personal edict.
The situations in which a lawyer's personal values conflict with his or her
professional responsibilities are easy to list, and they never fail to stimulate
thoughtful discussions among students: defending the guilty or prosecuting
the innocent; limiting the liability of a willful and reckless polluter; using the
legal process to wear down competitors or other adversaries; or asserting a
dubious privilege solely to conceal damaging evidence. And the list could go
on.
Many practitioners (all of whom were once clear-eyed law students) resolve
the conflict by declaring that the only way to truly promote justice is to make
the justice system work, which requires that every party have a zealous

advocate who will advance the client's interestsright or wrongwithin the

bounds of the law.

Not only is individual morality not logically primary in dispensing social justice,
the very structure of the legal and democratic process is aimed at circumventing
the influence of atomistic moral judgments (on behalf of any one individual) in
favour of a broader canon of social equity and justice via the judicial process.