But are the lawyers?
I went to another exciting ICLE class last night (see 'Day 6' on "9 Days Gone" for more details) – this time to sit through what I thought would be a three hour lecture on “Professional Responsibility” (aka Ethics). I generally do not look forward to these damn things, but I was especially uninterested in this class – not because I don’t believe in being ethical, but because I’ve already sat through 7 hours of ethics lectures in the last few months, and its starts to get a little repetitive after about the first hour. Anyway – lucky me – it wasn’t a three hour lecture I had to attend last night…it as only part lecture; the rest was a video! That’s right – a video…little role playing vignettes followed by discussion of the vignettes with regard to the NJ ethics rules. ICLE classes are bad enough when real people are talking, but on video…Zzzzzzzzzzzz…
I went to another exciting ICLE class last night (see 'Day 6' on "9 Days Gone" for more details) – this time to sit through what I thought would be a three hour lecture on “Professional Responsibility” (aka Ethics). I generally do not look forward to these damn things, but I was especially uninterested in this class – not because I don’t believe in being ethical, but because I’ve already sat through 7 hours of ethics lectures in the last few months, and its starts to get a little repetitive after about the first hour. Anyway – lucky me – it wasn’t a three hour lecture I had to attend last night…it as only part lecture; the rest was a video! That’s right – a video…little role playing vignettes followed by discussion of the vignettes with regard to the NJ ethics rules. ICLE classes are bad enough when real people are talking, but on video…Zzzzzzzzzzzz…
My point is that this was the ethics lecture. And ethics are (sorry to say) boring enough without having to stay awake through a boring ass video. And considering how important ethics are (esp. for lawyers, given that our rep already sux as it is), you’d think the good ole’ NJ Bar powers-that-be would try to make it a little interesting; you’d think they’d want people to at least stay awake . But, I was there, and looking around I saw people sleeping, reading novels, zoning out, nodding off, etc. – everything except actually paying attention. And considering that NJ lawyers NEVER have to take another ethics class as long as they live, that’s more than a little scary. Half the people in this class have no idea what’s going on because they're in la-la land and the other half will forget because they never have to take a refresher course. Now some states do require refresher courses (like NY which requires 3 hours of ethics every 2 years, thus my recent experience with ethics classes) – but not NJ. Nope – NJ just makes you watch a dreadfully boring video and hopes for the best when it comes to professionally responsible and ethical lawyering in their state. What a fucking waste of time. No wonder lawyers have such a bad rep! Our clients listen to everything we say (or so says the video vignette), but we, as a group anyway, don’t listen to shit. Instead we use our ethics class as naptime (or at least some do). It made me (who was not fucking sleeping) want to stand up in the lecture hall and scream, “Wake up assholes – this is my rep on the line too!” I didn’t, but I really wanted to. Then again, maybe I’ll get the chance again tonight – that’s right – another fun and exciting ICLE ethics session featuring the NJ Bar Players in…. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
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