Charles Silver’s review of David Luban’s Legal Ethics and Human Dignity needs to be understood as the latest word in a debate which began with the publication of “What’s Not to like About Being a Lawyer?” a 1999 review essay of Arthur Liman’s memoir in the Yale Law Journal (109 Yale L.J. 1449), which Silver wrote with Frank Cross. In that essay Silver and Cross make several fundamental claims. First, they assert the moral value of all lawyer work. They ground this assertion in the position that the pursuit of lawful private interest is a social and moral good; when lawyers assist individuals pursue those private interests they too, therefore, do a moral good: “lawyers who help paying clients with private matters make valuable microeconomic contributions by helping create and maintain the world of commerce and valuable micropolitical contributions by maintaining a culture in which people actively create and use legal rights” (1449).
Second, they argue that this work of lawyers has as much inherent value as “pro bono” or other work directed at ameliorating the life of the more disadvantaged. They argue on the one hand that “private-sector lawyering makes an enormous economic contribution to social welfare, including the welfare of the poor” (1479) and that, on the other hand, it is unlikely that pro bono work will make a significant contribution to the life of the less advantaged. It would, Silver and Cross argue, be better and more efficient to simply transfer wealth to the disadvantaged; rather than requiring pro bono, “[w]hy not have lawyers donate money” (1483) while using their legal skills to their maximum economic value?
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