On monday, I had what may have been the finest moment of my law school career (which in and of itself is a sad commentary on how pathetic my career has been)

In professional responsibility (which is an ethics class), the professor was talking about a life experience. The short version is that when he was a new lawyer, his friend came to him covered in blood and in hysterics. The Prof was able to calm the guy down and call the cops to turn himself in. The cops, in their infinite wisdom, brought the prof in as well and wouldn't let him leave. They demanded that the prof tell them certain information about when the guy came to see him. The professor wasn't sure if he was ethically allowed to divulge certain information (for the non lawyers reading this, just think of "attorney-client privlidge" and you get the BASIC idea).

The professor then began stroking his ego talking about how conflicted he was in his decision making process and how he was balancing all types of issues of ethics and morals. Then, the cops came back and threatened to ruin his career ("how do you think RU Law will react to hearing that one of their profs is being detained as a material witness for a murder?"). So, after a long episode of crying like a baby, the Professor came up with a deal. "if i show you where the knife is, will you let me go?".

Now, whether or not it is "wrong" to show the cops where the knife is is open for debate. Legally, it's a gray area in terms of rules of confidentiality. Similarly, it is reasonable for a person to conclude that the heinessness of murder superseeds (sp) the loyalty you show a friend. But, and here is the important part, the professor didn't make his decision based on either of these two factors. The thing that 100% controlled his decision is how his disclosure would affect him personally.

He asked for comments regarding his decision and someone a few rows in front of me praised him for making the right decision. "you did exactly what i would have done, and you did it for the right reasons." This actually caused me to lift my head up from under my computer and before i knew it, i had my hand up.

"um, getting back to your example professor, if the cops had let you go, would you have still volunteered the location of the knife?"

"no, i wouldn't have.".

"so the way i see it, and correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems like your decision was based entirely on the fact that you had something personally at stake. You only decided to disclose the knife after they threatened your career. You can talk about valor all you want, but that sounds pretty selfish and self serving to me and I don't see how that's 'ethical'".

"well, yeah, i guess you are right, but like i was telling you, i had a little birdie on my shoulder of my old professor who was going over the legal obligations and whether or not i had to disclose the information...."

"yeah, i understand all that, but like you said, you didn't make your decision based on that issue. You said you turned over the knife b/c of their threats, and if those threats didn't exist, you wouldn't have turned over the knife. So, your decision was based on personal gains."

"well, maybe i would have felt the guilty the next morning and gone back to them and turned in teh knife."

"ok. fine."

as i was done getting off my high horse, dan goes "i can't believe you just did that."

during the break 2 people came up to me and said "are you the one who called out the professor for being a hypocrite? way to go!"

the next day, another person came up to me and was all excited by my comments.

And thus, I have started the revolution. It only took 2 years and 10 months.

I'll right the valley part of the blog tomm. i'm tired and busy.