O'Connor on Ethical Missteps in Legal Profession
Speaking at Stanford University this week, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor waded into the topic of unscrupulous lawyers.
Speaking about the “drastic results” of the 2001 collapse of Enron Corp., O’Connor said, “It makes one wonder what kind of ethical standards the lawyers and the accountants were following.”
According to a report in the New York Sun, O’Connor told the audience that it isn’t enough for lawyers to look for technical interpretations of the law. “We have a deeper obligation than that as a lawyer, as a human being, to reflect on what we’re being asked to do and put it in a larger perspective and ask if it is the right thing to do. Many times it isn’t.”
O’Connor, who retired from the high court in 2006 and has since kept a busy speaking and appellate court schedule, said lawyers need to find courage to tell managers when conduct is inappropriate, even when that’s not what the manager or client wants to hear.
