Our Duty

"While it is a lawyer's duty, when necessary, to challenge the rectitude of official action, it is also a lawyer's duty to uphold the legal system. . . . All lawyers should devote professional time and resources and use civic influence to ensure equal access to our system of justice for all . . ." Preamble to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Lawyers face a balance,

As do citizens of our nation.

The duality is nuanced: challenge injustices and inefficiencies in the systems and uphold those systems for all.

No easy task.

As we celebrate July 4th--for a 250th time,

I've been thinking about these words from the preamble to our profession's ethics rules.

Our duty goes beyond our self-regulated profession.

Lawyers must be "guided by personal conscience" and "strive to attain the highest level of skill, to improve the law and the legal profession and to exemplify the legal profession's ideals of public service."

I sometimes feel uneasy and at a loss of what I can do in these turbulent times to help others, to help myself.

The preamble reminds me that my daily work, my job, my profession, has the answer: I am a public citizen, yes, and a lawyer, with a "special responsibility for the quality of justice."

With these reminders, I can strive to better myself, my profession, and our country.

Let that be enough and a consistent thread as we press ahead as a country.