America’s systems of governance and jurisprudence require that all lawyers understand in a similar way a few basic ideas, irrespective of religion, geography, race, origin, ability, color, gender or political affiliation. As a new lawyer, whenever that was, you may not have recognized the Supreme Court’s implicit faith that you would share with other lawyers a common understanding of certain fundamental concepts, but it’s there.

Look at the Common Law’s “reasonable man” standard (which has become the “reasonable person” standard, finally refuting my late mother’s notion that women were more reasonable). We have no problem working with it. Why should we? Lawyers are experts on reasonableness. It begins in law school. In Torts class we dissected and analyzed human conduct to brighten the line between reasonableness and its opposite. In Contracts class, we refined our understanding of reasonable time, reasonable delay or reasonable compensation. Our entire criminal justice system is predicated on our determination of what is meant by a reasonable doubt, and even the RPC on fees is a mandate that we be reasonable.

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