Professional Responsibility --- everyone's doin' it

Even those at the top of the integrity ladder need to check the righteousness of their rungs now and then, just look at the DOJ.

Attorney General Mukasey told the ABA House of Delegates on August 12 that "Professionalism is alive and well at the Justice Department today." (Did I detect an emphasis on the word today?) He was heartily applauded.

AG Mukasey was referring to Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility joint reports that investigated DOJ hiring practices in and before 2007. The investigations demonstrated and the AG acknowledged that improper political considerations had been used in hiring immigration judges, AUSA hirings and prestigious legal internship programs, among a few other positions.

AG Mukasey then took the professional responsibility helm and let everyone know that much has changes including, inter alia, new hiring procedures and mandatory training. Now things have been righted and the AG assured the audience that "Politics must play no role either in the hiring of career employees or in the investigation and prosecution of cases." [more applause]

You can find a video of the speech at http://www.abavideonews.org/

Not Just For the Seasoned Set

Here is an inspiring article from the National Law Journal that I am sharing with those of you who didn't catch it earlier:

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202423761253

Proof that lawyering is fun. You can't argue with a 98 year old. Enough said.

What New York Lawyers think of Mandatory Retirement - Reprise

According to our survey results most New York lawyers are against mandatory retirement. A whopping eighty seven percent (87%!) of those surveyed both "young" and "older" attorneys (in fact, numerically, more young attorneys were in favor than older -- likely because we appear to have more participation here at the blog from younger attorneys -- so start clicking old fogies!) voted that mandatory retirement is unfair and should be eliminated.

Only twelve percent of those surveyed thought that mandatory retirement was fair and should be compulsory -- and 100% of those in favor of mandatory retirement are all young lawyers. Apparently no older lawyers who participated felt that mandatory retirement was fair. Surprised?

I wonder if the results would be the same if we surveyed folks whether firms' up and out policies are fair? But then again that is like apples and oranges, isn't it? or is it?

What do you think? Maybe we should make that a future survey? In the meantime, click the COMMENTS button and share your opinion.

Oh, and also cast your vote on the new survey: Why does the public prefer to castigate us rather than love us?