Code of Conduct a Professional Code of

Code of Conduct A professional code of conduct is essential for any profession. Indeed, a code of conduct is one of the things that uniformly separates professions from other types of jobs. Because professionals such as lawyers, doctors, accountants, and therapists hold positions of trust in which they can do both great good and great harm to their clients, it is imperative that professionals are bound to a code of conduct that limits their entirely human tendency to succumb to temptation.

The professional codes of conduct vary from profession to profession as one might expect, but they also share a number of similarities. Most codes of conduct, including those for lawyers as well as others involved in the legal system such as judges, include a provision that professionals do not misrepresent themselves. This requires lawyers to be truthful when describing their education, skills, experience, and training.

Professionals cannot be motivated entirely or even primarily by money: It is certainly not professional to perform a service just because one can charge for it. This is entirely different from charging a legitimate fee for a legitimate service that one has performed. It is simply not acceptable to essentially make up a service and convince the client that she or he needs it when this is in fact not true.

Another common aspect of professional codes of conduct is that the professional must use the tools that are most likely to be effective in meeting the clients' needs. This can be a difficult task to accomplish because it tends to have a conservative effect on a profession. And while a professional should not heedlessly throw out a practice simply because it has been around for a long time, neither should he or she refuse to consider a new way of doing something simply because it is new.

A professional code of conduct helps individuals understand what their duties are vis-a-vis their clients, their colleagues, and indeed society as a whole. The American Bar Association outlines this larger sense of obligation as dictated by legal professional codes of conduct: As a public citizen, a lawyer should seek improvement of the law, access to the legal system, the administration of justice and the quality of service rendered by the legal profession.

As a member of a learned profession, a lawyer should cultivate knowledge of the law beyond its use for clients, employ that knowledge in reform of the law and work to strengthen legal education. In addition, a lawyer should further the public's understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the justice system because legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority. (American Bar Association.

Retrieved from http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_preamble_scope.html) The term canon is also used to refer to standards of conduct, with a "canon" being a general maxim that encapsulates fundamental ideas about the professional conduct that is expected of a certain group. 2. There would be no need of laws if all people were honest and just.

But, as any lawyer (or any other observer of human nature) can tell you, not all people are honest and just. Most people don't even want to be. Most people are at least a good deal of the time fundamentally selfish at least in their thoughts and desires. People are, however, constrained from being entirely selfish in their actions by laws, rules, regulations, and expectations. Professional groups, such as the American Bar Association or the American Medical Association, establish methods of disciplining themselves.

These disciplinary standards are higher than legal standards because professionals believe that they must be held to a higher standard than non-professionals. Such disciplinary boards and sets of rules generally have different sets of sanctions that they can mete out, from disbarment or loss of license on a temporary or permanent basis. Disciplinary boards and codes can also be used in attempts to help members of the profession better themselves.

Many organizations, including the national and state bar associations, for example, offer ethical training to their members after those members have been caught in ethical breaches (as well as before, of course). In this way, professional disciplinary mechanisms serve as internal policing systems. 3. What are the nine canons? 1. Canon 1. The Duty of the Lawyer to the.