News: ethics actually discussed at ethics CLE

Glad to say I've met my needs for a rental in the Olympia school district for the pets and us, found the new office with a 15-minute commute that avoids I-5, and picked up 4 (pending) Washington ethics credits.

Compliments to presenter Mike Gaffney of the Division of Governmental Studies & Services at Wazzu. The class was arranged for us public defenders and prosecutors by the local county extension agent; I liked that a land grant school sees its teaching mission extending beyond farmers and stockmen. Then our instructor got up and started talking about Aristotle of all things. This was going to be interesting.

Just about every other ethics CLE I've attended has been an uninspired slog through the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility. The format has been something like, "okay, let's hypothetically that say you do X; Model Rule X.XX says that you can't do that; everybody got that? okay, let's move on to Model Rule X.XY." If they really wanted to spice things up, they'd add, "but let's compare that to what the ABA proposed revisions to the Model Rules say." Riveting, what?

By contrast, the CLE this week was about, well, ethics. Imagine that, morality and right conduct being addressed in a room full of lawyers. Not the minimum we can get away with to avoid a Bar complaint, but what we ought to aspire to. Talk about the public trust and our own inner compasses. Those words "moral" and "morals" being bandied about, and John Stuart Mill thrown in for good measure. All this on the taxpayers' nickel, in a Blue state no less. Felt like I was back in undergrad - it was great.