Monday, February 12, 2007

Ethos, Oral Advocacy, And Passion

I'm going to go against the unstated rule of this blog and talk about something which happened in class, but only as a launching off point. Today, Osler closed out our Oral Advocacy class by giving us the advice that advocating for things you don't believe in is a certain path to unhappiness. In short, you can't fake passion.

I don't doubt there will be a point in all of our careers we're going to advance an argument or represent a client we don't believe with all of our hearts. The question is how you can do this without it taking away a little piece of your soul. How big is the compromise? Is it just arguing something you think is unlikely? Or something completely against your beliefs? How do we rectify our future clients' interests with our own belief structure?

Because I don't doubt he's right. The question is, what is a moral compromise and what is just lacking all of your passion? I don't know. But it's an interesting thought. Until I'm faced with that moral dilemna, I think I'm gonna go down to the DQ and have some ice cream. Which, quite frankly, is the best way one should deal with a moral quandry.

2 comments:

Mark Osler said...

For what it's worth, I did the exact same thing-- the DQ, that is. They have that here in Uvalde. Yum.

Praise the Highlander said...

What about those of us who just lack passion as a general proposition?