As Bosk shows, such statments insist on reminding clients and potential clients of the power an attorney wields over them. the client should kiss your ass and be grateful as if somehow that demand is more acceptable than the demand most cops have that you treat them with respect because they've got a badge and a gun. I mean, right there it is: my professional license is the equivalent of a badge and a gun and deserves your respect and when you diss me and my profession you are on the outs with me. And you better recognize it too or your ass is fucked, big time. (As someone noted on my blog about his FtM surgeries, this is exactly how he's been made to feel about surgeons: he feels he has to grovel be/c if he doesn't they might scar him for life!)
> You can say what you like, but gbut when the cops
> are on your ass, who do you call -- Ghostbusters?
> No, you call a lawyer. Or you are a fool.
as I explain at the blog, the ethical standards that are part of all professions were put in place during a conscious and very political process in the US where, in exchange for autonomy from the state and in exchange for the right to oversee themselves and conduct their own investigations into misconduct, all the professions understood the right to take the public posture that, in exchange for power, they were willing to punish their own for violations of such conduct.
The professional is NOT supposedly to weild that power over the client as if the client owes him something. Rather, the attorney welds that power humbly always recognizing that, in the grand scheme of things, whatever the attorney jokes are all about, they are nothing in terms of cost compared to what it might cost someone if the professional fucks up: death, injury, money, freedom.
BOSK: "The professional agrees to protect the client's best interests. The physician does not promise to cure. The lawyer does not promise to win the case. The most that either can promise is to help as best he can and in a fashion consistent with the highest standards of the professional community."
In other words, the professional makes symbolic sacrifices in order to, supposedly, match what his client has at stake by a considerable investment of his own.
Normative errors failure to uphold the code of conduct and failure to have the appropriate attitude toward the client are errors which mock the claims the profession makes for itself, its role, and the practitioners' responsibilities toward clients. As Bosk writes, "the very fabric of the client-professional relationship has been breached and subverted" when a professional does not adequately demonstrate his recognition of how much power she has over the client.
http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/05/19/forgive-and-remember/
http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/05/19/1463/
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org