Vischer on Lawyers, Judges and Conscience

Last evening here at Fordham we were fortunate to have MOJ’s own Rob Vischer as the featured speaker for the first in this year’s Catholic Lawyer’s Program lecture series, Faithful Citizenship, which explored “When Conscience Clashes with State Law & Policy: The Distinctions Between Lawyers and Judges.”  We were treated to a wonderful in-depth analysis which is part of Rob’s larger project on the role of conscience and prudence in the legal system as a whole. 

The thrust of Rob’s argument (who can correct me if I got it wrong) was that there should be much wider latitude for attorneys to bring their conscience to bear on professional decisions, because for the most part the market allows clients to seek a variety of avenues for representation.  Judges, in contrast, are not market actors, and so outside areas where discretion would normally be brought to bear, exercise of one’s personal and perhaps idiosyncratic conscience may threaten the rule of law, fairness, predictability, and other values of the legal system.  For the purposes of our project, one especially interesting aspect of the presentation was its groudning in principles of CST: subsidiarity, solidarity, reciprocity, and the common good.

The response by my colleague Bruce Green then initiated a terrific open discussion with the participating attorneys.

I look forward to seeing his paper posted soon – there’s much to chew on.