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agonyaunt2022-09-10 10:14 am
ermingarden) wrote in agonyaunt2022-09-10 10:14 am
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The Ethicist: Is It OK to Take a Law-Firm Job Defending Climate Villains?
I come from a working-class family. I have worked very hard in school and graduated college with little debt, so when I was given the opportunity to attend an elite law school, I took it — along with a $150,000 price tag. Some people may scorn me for such a decision, but this was my dream school, and I saw it as a ticket to an echelon of society and opportunity that was otherwise entirely barred to me.
While I entered law school hoping to work in the public interest, I now face the reality of paying back my loans. I took an internship at a big law firm where I am paid very well, and I’ve been invited to work for them once I graduate. The salary would be enough for me to pay off my loans, help my family and establish a basic standard of living for myself — plus maybe own a house or even save for retirement, which would be impossible for me on a public-interest or government salary.
But the firm’s work entails defending large corporations that I’m ethically opposed to, including many polluters and companies that I feel are making the apocalyptic climate situation even worse. Even if I only stay at the firm for a short time to pay off my loans, I would be helping in these efforts for some time.
Basically, I feel torn between two value systems. The first is the value system of my parents, which prizes hard work and self-sufficiency. My parents are very proud of me for working in a high-level job that allows me to support myself. The second is my own personal moral code — the little idealist within me who wants me to drop the corporate angle in order to help as many people as I can, even if it results in a difficult life for me.
I know it is selfish to take this corporate job. But is it unforgivable? Will defending polluters, even for a short time in a junior position, be a permanent black mark on my life? Name Withheld
Congratulations on your achievements thus far — and on asking hard questions about how to use the skills and the qualifications you’re acquiring. Decisions like the one you face are complicated. You will have been taught in law school that everyone accused of a serious crime is entitled to legal counsel. The situation is different when it comes to civil cases and to corporate defendants. (The details here vary with the types of cases and with jurisdictions.) But corporations are generally required to represent themselves with properly licensed lawyers, in both civil and criminal proceedings. And the principle remains that representing a malefactor isn’t, ipso facto, an act of malefaction.
Now, we’re rightly concerned when corporations do damage to the environment, and so to humanity as a whole. But it’s hard to see how the world would be improved if such corporations couldn’t find legal advice and representation. Is a corporation really going to behave better if it doesn’t know what the law is? More than that, the world would most likely be made worse if corporations could only find lawyers who were indifferent to the wrongs their clients were doing. As with criminal defense, we need lawyers who will work diligently for people and associations whether they approve of them or not. Your job, whatever your feelings about your clients, would be to give them what they’re entitled to. That includes effective and committed legal advice and guidance; it does not include helping them to break the law or lie to the authorities. Indeed, you have a duty, as an officer of the court, to tell them they can’t do these things and to refuse to assist them in doing so.
Even if what your clients are doing is legal, you may still feel uncomfortable supplying guidance and representation, because the activities shouldn’t be legal. We ought to have laws and regulations that treat the climate crisis with full seriousness, and we don’t. Refusing to take the corporate-law job does disconnect you from the wrongs these clients do but wouldn’t deprive them of legal assistance. After all, the firm isn’t going to stop serving them if you decline to join it. But you don’t suggest that your career choice will make a difference to what these clients do. You simply don’t want to be involved in helping them to do it. That’s why you speak specifically of a “black mark” on your life.
I’m not sure that this form of moral accounting makes much sense, though. Again, for an adversarial legal system to function justly, there have to be lawyers who are willing to serve clients they disapprove of. If that’s a demerit, it has to appear on somebody’s moral scorecard. But surely it can’t be both good that somebody does it and a demerit for the person who has done it. (You can regret having to do something as part of your job, even if that something isn’t itself wrong.) And, on the bright side, not all of your clients are likely to be evildoers; your company will also be doing some pro bono work for people you may actively enjoy working for.
Some analysts, notably those associated with the effective-altruism movement, might even suggest that the high-paying track could be the morally best one for you to take. In the earning-to-give approach — explored in the philosopher Peter Singer’s book “The Most Good You Can Do” — people with the requisite skills may set out to earn lots of money and give a great deal of it to humanitarian causes, helping the world more than they would have had they devoted themselves directly to doing good. You might, in this scenario, pay off those loans, help your family and then, as a richly remunerated partner, give a big chunk of your earnings to saving lives in the developing world or supporting causes that will advance climate security and justice. You’ll have passed up the low-paying job at the public-interest center, but your generous donations will fund three such positions. If your aim were simply to help as many people as you can, you might conclude, after a careful assessment, that going for the big paycheck was the right thing to do.
Still, one party who matters here is you. Selfishness isn’t a matter of taking your interests and those of your loved ones into account; it’s a matter of giving those interests more weight than they deserve. Getting money to escape debt and help your family is a perfectly reasonable aim, consistent with being an ethically admirable person. But so is taking satisfaction in your work. If much of your time is spent in the service of corporate nogoodniks, you may well end up being unhappy. That’s not a choice you can be obliged to make. On the other hand, if you do become a partner in a firm like the one at which you’re interning, you may be able to change the balance of cases that the firm accepts. Or you could plan on switching jobs later to better align your livelihood with your values, defending the environment rather than those who ill use it. It’s altogether possible that your having worked at the high-paying law firm will give you valuable insight into how corporate polluters operate.
The calculus here involves all these conflicting considerations. Whichever way you go, I suspect, you will be able to do good. Your letter suggests that the “little idealist” within you won’t be taking early retirement; staying on the course you’re now on doesn’t mean that you’ll forget about the causes that matter.
While I entered law school hoping to work in the public interest, I now face the reality of paying back my loans. I took an internship at a big law firm where I am paid very well, and I’ve been invited to work for them once I graduate. The salary would be enough for me to pay off my loans, help my family and establish a basic standard of living for myself — plus maybe own a house or even save for retirement, which would be impossible for me on a public-interest or government salary.
But the firm’s work entails defending large corporations that I’m ethically opposed to, including many polluters and companies that I feel are making the apocalyptic climate situation even worse. Even if I only stay at the firm for a short time to pay off my loans, I would be helping in these efforts for some time.
Basically, I feel torn between two value systems. The first is the value system of my parents, which prizes hard work and self-sufficiency. My parents are very proud of me for working in a high-level job that allows me to support myself. The second is my own personal moral code — the little idealist within me who wants me to drop the corporate angle in order to help as many people as I can, even if it results in a difficult life for me.
I know it is selfish to take this corporate job. But is it unforgivable? Will defending polluters, even for a short time in a junior position, be a permanent black mark on my life? Name Withheld
Congratulations on your achievements thus far — and on asking hard questions about how to use the skills and the qualifications you’re acquiring. Decisions like the one you face are complicated. You will have been taught in law school that everyone accused of a serious crime is entitled to legal counsel. The situation is different when it comes to civil cases and to corporate defendants. (The details here vary with the types of cases and with jurisdictions.) But corporations are generally required to represent themselves with properly licensed lawyers, in both civil and criminal proceedings. And the principle remains that representing a malefactor isn’t, ipso facto, an act of malefaction.
Now, we’re rightly concerned when corporations do damage to the environment, and so to humanity as a whole. But it’s hard to see how the world would be improved if such corporations couldn’t find legal advice and representation. Is a corporation really going to behave better if it doesn’t know what the law is? More than that, the world would most likely be made worse if corporations could only find lawyers who were indifferent to the wrongs their clients were doing. As with criminal defense, we need lawyers who will work diligently for people and associations whether they approve of them or not. Your job, whatever your feelings about your clients, would be to give them what they’re entitled to. That includes effective and committed legal advice and guidance; it does not include helping them to break the law or lie to the authorities. Indeed, you have a duty, as an officer of the court, to tell them they can’t do these things and to refuse to assist them in doing so.
Even if what your clients are doing is legal, you may still feel uncomfortable supplying guidance and representation, because the activities shouldn’t be legal. We ought to have laws and regulations that treat the climate crisis with full seriousness, and we don’t. Refusing to take the corporate-law job does disconnect you from the wrongs these clients do but wouldn’t deprive them of legal assistance. After all, the firm isn’t going to stop serving them if you decline to join it. But you don’t suggest that your career choice will make a difference to what these clients do. You simply don’t want to be involved in helping them to do it. That’s why you speak specifically of a “black mark” on your life.
I’m not sure that this form of moral accounting makes much sense, though. Again, for an adversarial legal system to function justly, there have to be lawyers who are willing to serve clients they disapprove of. If that’s a demerit, it has to appear on somebody’s moral scorecard. But surely it can’t be both good that somebody does it and a demerit for the person who has done it. (You can regret having to do something as part of your job, even if that something isn’t itself wrong.) And, on the bright side, not all of your clients are likely to be evildoers; your company will also be doing some pro bono work for people you may actively enjoy working for.
Some analysts, notably those associated with the effective-altruism movement, might even suggest that the high-paying track could be the morally best one for you to take. In the earning-to-give approach — explored in the philosopher Peter Singer’s book “The Most Good You Can Do” — people with the requisite skills may set out to earn lots of money and give a great deal of it to humanitarian causes, helping the world more than they would have had they devoted themselves directly to doing good. You might, in this scenario, pay off those loans, help your family and then, as a richly remunerated partner, give a big chunk of your earnings to saving lives in the developing world or supporting causes that will advance climate security and justice. You’ll have passed up the low-paying job at the public-interest center, but your generous donations will fund three such positions. If your aim were simply to help as many people as you can, you might conclude, after a careful assessment, that going for the big paycheck was the right thing to do.
Still, one party who matters here is you. Selfishness isn’t a matter of taking your interests and those of your loved ones into account; it’s a matter of giving those interests more weight than they deserve. Getting money to escape debt and help your family is a perfectly reasonable aim, consistent with being an ethically admirable person. But so is taking satisfaction in your work. If much of your time is spent in the service of corporate nogoodniks, you may well end up being unhappy. That’s not a choice you can be obliged to make. On the other hand, if you do become a partner in a firm like the one at which you’re interning, you may be able to change the balance of cases that the firm accepts. Or you could plan on switching jobs later to better align your livelihood with your values, defending the environment rather than those who ill use it. It’s altogether possible that your having worked at the high-paying law firm will give you valuable insight into how corporate polluters operate.
The calculus here involves all these conflicting considerations. Whichever way you go, I suspect, you will be able to do good. Your letter suggests that the “little idealist” within you won’t be taking early retirement; staying on the course you’re now on doesn’t mean that you’ll forget about the causes that matter.
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Appiah is a professor at NYU, and this semester, he's teaching a seminar at the Law School called "Life of Honor" (the link is to the 2020 course description, the 2022 version isn't up). One of the major ways the Law School funds itself is through alumni donations – the institution has a strong interest in having many law students go into high-paying Biglaw jobs! I'm not suggesting that Appiah is being dishonest in his answer, but I do note that the attitude law students generally have toward going into corporate law is something that does impact his livelihood.
The analogy to criminal defense falls apart fairly quickly. It's extremely important that we have public defenders for those who cannot afford to hire private attorneys! But the career path LW is considering, if there's any analogy to criminal law, is to private criminal defense practice; private defense attorneys whose services are in demand can be, and frequently are, choosy about what clients they take. That same choice is being made here, just by the firm rather than by LW.
We often, and rightly, condemn firms' choice of clients on ethical grounds. For example, Jones Day – the firm that represented Trump in challenging the 2020 election results – is now having some serious difficulties hiring talented young associates due to a boycott: People widely view taking a case that has such a negative impact on the public interest as wrong. Once Jones Day agreed to take Trump's case, the lawyers assigned to it were ethically bound to zealously advocate for the client to the extent they could within the bounds of the law – but there was no obligation on the firm to take Trump on as a client. Something like the reverse happened at Kirkland & Ellis recently: The firm (perhaps belatedly) dropped the NRA as a client – a decision that led the Kirkland lawyers who had actually represented the NRA before the Supreme Court in the Bruen case to leave the firm.
I'm not saying going into corporate law, and representing distasteful clients, isn't ethically justifiable! But Appiah usually draws a distinction between "justifiable" and "actively good" that he doesn't seem to be doing with clarity here.
Regarding the loans: LW should look into public interest loan forgiveness programs, both through the federal government and through their law school. These have been created as a counterbalance to the pressure to go corporate simply to pay off one's debts, and depending on the school, the program may be extremely generous; this is particularly likely at an "elite" law school, which LW says they attend. Generally speaking, these types of programs will forgive all of a participant's law school loans after ten years of work in public interest (chiefly, although not exclusively, at a nonprofit organization or government agency). I understand why Appiah might not want to give practical financial advice, but it's worth noting that if LW really wants to go into public interest work, the pressure from those loans probably isn't as strong as the column is portraying it.
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Yeah, this is an interesting one. I would argue that it's not inherently evil to represent a firm that does some evil, any more than it's inherently evil to work at Facebook, but with a massive caveat. The lawyers LW is describing sound like a more than just firms that do evil as a side effect of their other work, and the lawyers that represent the big climate villains (such as Chevron's lawyers in their prosecution of Steven Donziger) are a hell of a lot worse than cogs in a capitalist machine.
I'd ask LW an important question, which is, does LW think it's more likely that they could survive on a public interest salary (or even a non BigLaw job -- if they're good enough for BigLaw, they're good enough for a respectable normal role), or more likely that their own sense of self and moral code could survive at a BigLaw job defending Exxon and the Koch Brothers. Because realistically, either they'll wash out at the firm, or they'll become a person who doesn't think destroying the earth or murdering Berta Cáceres is all that bad, actually.
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What would happen if every lawyer refused to defend private individuals accused of eg murder? Innocent people would go to jail and/or guilty people would go unpunished.
What would happen if every lawyer refused to work for Shell etc to let them have new oil rigs and new gas rigs and new coal mines? Climate change would slow down [or at least stop speeding up] and there would be less deaths from floods in Pakistan and less deaths from wildfires in California and less deaths from heatwaves and...
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idk i'd at least apply for other jobs before committing...
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Yes! I mean, a paid hitman could say that. It's not a justification.
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yes, this, and also Peter Singer would argue that half the people in this comm are parasites on society and should probably be left on a rock for the wolves to eat.
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For me, the question is: why did you clerk at this firm to begin with? Most law students are hoping for a permanent offer after their clerkship ends, although with certain non-profits and/or government jobs, that may be an unlikely proposition. Was it the only job you could get? Did you just not research it before you got into it? Have you only recently started having a conscious objection to these companies? Can you stomach doing this job for a couple of years to pay off loans and establish yourself? Will this give you useful skills that you could then use to help others? If you left this firm to go to the EPA or other firm engaged in fighting against climate change, would your learned skills help you there? In short, can you use this experience to serve the greater good down the road? Those are the question that really need answers.
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The article's here, no paywall: Selling 'longtermism': how PR and marketing drive a controversial new movement.
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