Professionals are not only dedicated to service as a fundamental component of their work, they are conscious of the moral significance of that service in their own lives and in the greater public context. They acknowledge and accept the responsibility that consciousness implies, a responsibility which is for lawyers extremely complex. The responsibility carries implicit requirements of learning, competence, and dedication. Professionals are people who consciously accept the moral duty implicit in their training and in the use of their skills and expertise, a duty of service to that which is...

Professionals are not only dedicated to service as a fundamental component of their work, they are conscious of the moral significance of that service in their own lives and in the greater public context. They acknowledge and accept the responsibility that consciousness implies, a responsibility which is for lawyers extremely complex. The responsibility carries implicit requirements of learning, competence, and dedication. Professionals are people who consciously accept the moral duty implicit in their training and in the use of their skills and expertise, a duty of service to that which is greater than themselves and which results in meaningful benefits to the greater community. This chapter attempts to declare the practice of law dead as a profession and attempts to compensate the loss by trying to reconceive the legal profession as a business rather than a profession or as some hybrid of the two. Lawyers possess training, skills, and position which give them immense power and which raise enormously complex moral questions inherent in the work itself.