The ongoing “professionalism” movement, which has spawned local and state codes of civility and professionalism, recognizes that the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not resolve all ethical issues. Legal education courses about the Model Rules are designated as programs on “ethics,” but the word “ethics” does not appear in the rules’ black-letter, mandatory provisions; the rules relegate the terms “ethics” and “ethical” to a few comments.
Lawyers complain that law schools do not teach students how to practice law, and law schools counter that they are not trade schools. Yet, while American law schools acknowledge that they have an obligation to teach the Model Rules, these efforts are primarily devoted to preparing students to take the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) — a multiple-choice exam that eschews any effort to identify gaps in the Model Rules or to require students to develop a personal set of ethical principles to guide them when the Model Rules are silent.
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