“The better you do in Legal Ethics, the more corrupt you are as a lawyer.” This was told to me by a senior (and evidently, jaded) lawyer when I first began at Osgoode. I believe the underlying assumption of this perspective is that Legal Ethics, as it is traditionally taught, tests your ability to manipulate and argue rules, rather than cultivate “goodness” as a lawyer. Consequently, this sentiment predicts that shrewd students will effectively “exploit” the rules of ethics, as opposed to diligently abide by them.
While I can’t verify whether excelling in Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community (ELGC) actually correlates with future malfeasance, “Better Call Saul” provides a compelling case study of a particular lawyer’s moral decline. Serving as a prequel to “Breaking Bad”, the series focuses on Jimmy McGill, a con man turned lawyer. While Jimmy begins his legal career with honest intentions to do good and leave his criminal antics behind, his ethics slowly devolve over time.
Jimmy’s moral relapses are far from simple. As the viewer, you are constantly tested to see how far you are willing to go along with the protagonist’s actions, much like you were with Walter White in “Breaking Bad”. Initially, there are some persuasive reasons to justify Jimmy’s criminal conduct. Amidst starting out in his unlucrative career as a public defender, Jimmy is burdened with caring for his older brother, Chuck, a distinguished attorney who suffered a serious mental breakdown. More poignantly, some of Jimmy’s most ethical moments go unrecognized by others. Jimmy’s excellent “submissions” when he deftly persuades a drug dealer to only break a victim’s knee caps rather than kill them, will certainly never make it into a casebook. Similarly, when Jimmy forgoes a large fortune of embezzled public funds from his clients and instead opts to clandestinely return it to the local government, no one is there to sing his praises. Far from making Jimmy feel good, doing the right thing often appears to be a poor investment.
By contrast, whenever Jimmy slips back into criminality, he is rewarded by winning cases and earning substantial sums of money. Jimmy discovers that fabricating evidence can be an effective tool to make criminal charges go away. Breaching contracts in bad faith when you hold significant leverage on the other party can certainly pay off.
While Plato certainly prefers ethics that are defined within parameters of universal truths, “Better Call Saul” (and art, generally) allows us to shatter such illusions. In a simplistic sense, Jimmy provides zealous advocacy. His clients walk away freer and richer. To some, this may even be ethical. On the other hand, the short-term gains Jimmy begets by Machiavellian tactics can hardly be described as moral. Notably, it is only the context specific details provided by the show that allow for such distinctions to be made. Simply put, principles are no match for good storytelling.
I suspect that the show’s profound messages may also have to do with the medium itself. ELGC involved countless dry journal articles that seemed totally divorced from reality. “Better Call Saul,” while obviously dramatized, is also visually stirring. At first glance, the long shots of endless New Mexico deserts seem to connote a certain lawlessness. A myriad of Spaghetti Westerns may come to mind. But upon further examination, seeing the vast openness of the desert illuminated brings Ecclesiastes to mind, namely, “There is nothing new under the sun.” While I may have found Jimmy’s nuanced crimes difficult to indict, I was reminded that breaching ethics and committing sin are as old as time itself.
Lastly, it should be noted that I’m certainly not denigrating ELGC. I had a wonderful professor whom I genuinely hope to emulate in my own future career. But going forward, tuning to Netflix for the first week of 1L may, in fact, be a viable alternative for ELGC!