Should Bill Lerach Teach Ethics?
In the public version of the sentencing memo for disgraced class action lawyer Bill Lerach, it is revealed that the University of Pittsburgh Law School (Lerach's alma mater) has proposed that he teach legal ethics once he is out of prison for his participation in a criminal enterprise of obstructing justice by paying kickbacks in connection with the securities fraud class actions in which Lerach and his firm were counsel. See pages 21 and 22 of the memo. Lerach would do so by teleconference from his home in California. Is this a good idea? Perhaps Lerach has (or will) undergo a road-to-Damascus conversion. Or, perhaps Lerach is simply angling for a new career. In an editorial the San Francisco Examiner opined that "the students aren't alone at Pitt in needing instruction on legal ethics." Who's right?
Is this a joke? I can only imagine my and my classmates' reactions to being taught ethics by a notorious crook; maybe he'd be better teaching trial advocacy . . .
Posted by: John C | February 21, 2008 at 02:03 PM
I think the answer depends on what it is Lerach will be doing. If he's a guest lecturer in the class, that seems ok to me for reasons I describe here: http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/lerach-to-lectu.html?cid=103795254#comment-103795254
Great new blog folks!
Andy
Posted by: Andrew Perlman | February 22, 2008 at 09:27 AM
The lawyer ethics experts seem ridiculous in their hair splitting, and moral blindness.
Should a pedophile teach child care? "If he's a guest lecturer in the class, that seems ok to me." After all, he was able to get little kids to do stuff they never knew before. Child care workers could use that skill.
Lerach's conviction was on a technical lawyer gotcha. His biggest crime of damaging our economy, and encouraging outsourcing, by making business in the US unbearable, has yet to get addressed by the morally blind lawyer. His claims involved the duty to predict of the future, a facially ridiculous, and unconstitutional, supernatural power.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | February 22, 2008 at 04:51 PM
The special Legal Ethics course that I proposed that Bill Lerach would teach here at Pitt would be team-taught with me (a long-time legal ethics teacher) and tentatively tiled: "What Not To Do." It will be taught in person, not by video conferencing, and will be -- I think -- an extremely useful course.
Posted by: John Burkoff | February 26, 2008 at 05:47 PM