Abstract
The profession, it turns out, serves the status quo in multiple ways. At times, serving the status quo means making significant changes that will fend off outsiders or cultural change. At other times, serving the status quo means doing as little as possible in the vain hope that change will pass the profession by as if it were a bad dream rendered irrelevant by the morning light. In either event, the profession loses. Change comes and washes over the profession’s walls. The profession began to organize in earnest in the 1870s as state and local bar associations sprang up. For example, the Bar of the City of New York was founded for the profession’s “protect[ion], pur[ifaction] and preserv[ation].” My conclusion is that the legal profession and the American Bar Association, like the Bar of New York City in the 1870s, remain focused on preserving the status quo, facing backward or inward, instead of looking forward or outward to meet the challenges of the present and to predict and engage the changes of the future.
Recommended Citation
Moliterno, James E.
(2014)
"Ethics 20/20 Successfully Achieved Its Mission: It "Protected, Preserved, and Maintained","
Akron Law Review: Vol. 47:
Iss.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview/vol47/iss1/8