Why are ethics important in the legal profession?

Ethics are important in any profession including medicine, science, engineering, plumbing or air conditioning. In law, however, the legal framework and confidence in the administration of justice depends on people's perception of the ethical basis of laws and the enforcement of laws. Without sound ethics and the enforcement of proper ethical conduct, people would lose confidence in the court and judicial process to perilous effect. If confidence in law is eroded and people fail to respect the authority of the judiciary, we could be faced with anarchy and a disintegration of society as we know it.

They aren't, it's the appearance of ethics that matter. If you admit that you're lying, suppressing evidence, and suborning perjury a jury is less likely to believe you, so it is important that lawyers keep their activities well concealed. An appearance of ethics combined with keeping in place a politically controlled body to eliminate people who don't abide by their rules, and referring to it as an "Ethics Committee", maintains the trust of the public and the illusion that money really doesn't trump right and wrong.

I'm not sure. I've never seen a legal profession characterized by ethicalness, so I always assumed that ethics weren't necessary. The best accurate satirical model of the legal profession was the one given by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels, Chapter 5, "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms."

It tells how the law can be used by one man to steal cows from another, how lawyers sometimes have to resort to dirty tricks to win for their clients (such as making it appear that the opposing party is morally in the right) and how judges are known frequently to refuse large bribes from the side where justice lay, rather than do anything that would lessen the practice of the law.

You can't even pay a judge to do the right thing because they feel that it would be beneath their dignity. I don't mean taking the money, but rather doing the right thing. A judge would take the money fast enough if you were bribing him to cheat somebody, though, to be sure, you usually don't have to offer a bribe since cheating people is part of their regular routine. That is why there is less bribery going on in the legal profession than is generally believed.

There might be other reasons for why bribery isn't as common as people seem to think it is. During the 1980s, while Guy Hunt was Governor in Alabama, the FBI sent undercover agents into the state posing as lobbyists. They were looking for corruption, especially bribe-takers. But on several occasions, the official whom the FBI agent tried to bribe refused the money. Why? Because it wasn't enough. Let that be a lesson to the FBI. You can't bribe no Alabama politician for chickenfeed, boy!

Do you want to know how to get respect in a courtroom (from everybody except the family of your victim)? You must really be a scoundrel. The judge and the prosecuting attorney, and some of the cops, might say that they detest you, but they don't. No, indeed: they are more like you than you know. On the other hand, if you're some innocent schmuck stuck in the legal circus like the sucker in a poker game who hasn't yet realized it, those same people might say that they "respect" you. But they don't. They're LAUGHING at you -- just not in public where you can hear them doing it.

Reputations among lawyers and judges is a Public Relations fabrication, just as it is for politicians. There's a widespread fantasy, largely propagated by television series, regarding the noble, virtuous judge, attorney, or public official. It's a myth. Most of those guys are bandits who dress nice.

You seek legal advice usually as a last resort. The advice you get determine an outcome that usually affects your life either physically, emotionally, or financially. They hold a standard of care to their clients not to screw up their lives!

Because lawyers who are willing to lie just to win a case are unfair to the other side and it undermines the entire concept of justice.