Several years ago, one of my students wrote a witty and incisive paper on the popularity of lawyer jokes in American culture. But being a good lawyer, as my current students have come to understand, is no laughing matter.
Honoré Daumier's "L'Avocat" (The Lawyer). Source: Wikipedia. Whether re-enacting elements of the 1950s espionage trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg – a topic which remains as timely and as hotly contested as it first was 60 years ago — or interacting with professor Jeffrey Rosen of GW’s Law School who came to our class to discuss Justice Louis Brandeis’ views on privacy, or watching “Disturbing the Universe,” a rich and complicated documentary about William Kunstler, the larger-than-life human rights lawyer, my GW students, I would hope, now realize that the legal profession isn’t simply a nice way to make a living.
I’d like to think that our multiple and varied engagement over this past week with both the noble and the ignoble aspects of the courtroom might encourage those who aspire to a career in the law to set the bar just a wee bit higher.
