Schedule of Classes
215.8 sec. 1 - Ethics, Business, and Lawyers (Fall 2009)
Instructor: Robert H. Cole (view instructor's profile)
View all teaching evaluations for this course
Units: 3
Meeting Time: Tu 3:20-6:00
Meeting Location: 170
Course Control Number (Non-1Ls): 49523
Main Section Enrollment:
Enrolled: 41
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 60
As of: 11/25 06:43 AM
This course satisfies the School’s professional responsibility requirement. But it is not the traditional survey course in the rules of professional conduct. Rather, it reflects the view that traditional analysis of those rules provides an inadequate basis for personal responsibility for one’s acts and the character of one’s practice in a professional role. Accordingly, we will work through an expanding set of concepts, theories, and practices on which to ground interpretations of rules and one’s professional conduct generally.
We will of course study some rules of professional legal conduct. We will do this in the context of analyzing conventional moral reasoning, which we will see is like legal reasoning. In doing so, we will note the limits of professional rules and conventional moral reasoning (and legal analysis as well) and look for some creative ways in which reasoning about professional rules and conventional morality might be enlarged in the service of ethics. The course will then consider some larger systems – market capitalism and the legal profession – by commitment to which a person might seek to justify his or her actions. The limits of these systems or roles, too, seem inescapably to require resort to still larger ethical principles and processes, and we will consider the relevance of some leading ethical theories in developing personal responsibility.
These subjects could be vast, but we will treat them selectively and modestly, in keeping with the purposes of the course, which are fundamentally practical ones for busy lawyers and thoughtful individuals: to increase our sensitivity to the presence of ethical questions, to suggest the range and organization of tools available to us for their resolution, to show realistic possibilities for increased use of disciplined ethical thinking in making choices, and to encourage it. Along the way, the course will inevitably work on such professional skills as analytic reasoning, close reading, and careful outlining.
unsafe products, marketing in third world countries, environmental effects of business activities, whistle blowing, responsibility for law abidingness and morality in organizations, and some current issues of corporate scandal and inequality.
The course reader includes articles in law and business journals, some philosophical articles and excerpts, newspaper articles and journalistic pieces, cases, and problems. The final written assignment will be a paper (not actually a take home exam) of around 12 pages on a structured topic, with maximum time flexibility and no research. There will also be a short, peer-read written exercise early in the semester. Class participation will be used as a positive factor in the final grade. There will be a (reasonable) attendance requirement because we can’t ignore the obligation to attend class in a course on professional obligation, and the substance of the course is mostly in the classes. For the first class, attendance (and preparation) are required, because considerable substantive foundation for the semester will be covered then. (A handout for the first class will be available for those who are not yet sure they want to enroll.)
This course satisfies the Professional Responsibility Requirement.
New - Submit Teaching Evaluations (enrolled students only)
Exam Notes: TH
Course Category: Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
Course Subcategories:
Business Law
Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP)
Law and Economics
Law and Society
If you are the instructor, you may edit your files.
Books:
No books found for this course. Please always double check with your instructor.
