This paper examines the critical role of self-reflection in developing a coherent professional identity for attorneys. It argues that honest introspection into one's values, motivations, and background enables lawyers to navigate the complex dual roles of client advocate and officer of the court. The paper explores how professional identity encompasses an attorney's ethical commitments, relationships with stakeholders across the legal system, and responsibilities to clients, courts, and society. It distinguishes between the advisory and advocacy roles attorneys assume, emphasizing that self-awareness allows practitioners to establish clear ethical boundaries when moral and legal obligations intersect.
People rarely take the time to get to know themselves. If one does not know oneself, one can never really know anyone else. Self-reflection refers to the capacity for an individual to employ introspection and the willingness to investigate their drives, desires, expectations, needs, wants, competencies, and their views on personal purpose and nature. Self-reflection can be applied to professional goals, personal goals, and nearly every situation a person encounters in their life.
An attorney who honestly exercises self-reflection is clear about their motives, goals, and how to handle all aspects of their professional and personal life with respect to these goals. The self-reflective attorney is completely honest during this introspection. Sometimes this can be scary, but it is important that one understand oneself completely in order for self-reflection to be effective. The self-reflective attorney understands their background, their values, role models, and how these affect their own motivation and interaction with others. The self-reflective attorney also understands how others perceive them.
By knowing oneself, one is prepared to take on the challenges of others. The ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu said it best: "Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." Knowing oneself allows one to better understand one's strengths and weaknesses, to understand others, and to be most effective in a situation.
A key concept in self-reflection is to foster the development of both a professional identity and one's own personal identity. A professional identity is basically the way an attorney views their own role with respect to all of the stakeholders in the legal system. In trying to understand one's professional identity, one must ask oneself who one is and where one stands as a member of the legal profession. In general, one should ask, "What am I like as a person?" This foundational question goes back to the issue of self-reflection discussed above.
The next key concept in the development of a professional identity is to determine what one wants to be like in one's professional role. The goal here is to use self-reflection and one's professional goals to merge personal identity with professional aspirations. Extending the notion of professional identity further, one must then define their role relative to the type of clients one wishes to serve and where their expertise can best be utilized.
However, there are also other key concepts in the development of a professional identity. The self-reflective attorney must examine their own ethical and social values in conjunction with their core sense of professional identity. Does the attorney want only to make a lot of money? Does the attorney want to be helpful to others? These are the issues that self-reflection and the development of a professional identity help define.
One must develop an understanding of their professional role and identity as an attorney relative to the courts, judges, the opposition, their firm, the legal system, and society as a whole. The professional identity of an attorney extends far beyond interactions and contacts within the legal system or legal framework. One must also develop an understanding of how their role as an attorney is affected by and affects their family, friends, and other personal relationships. When developing a professional identity, the attorney must establish their own role expectations regarding interactions with all of these constituencies.
This requires quite a bit of introspection and self-reflection, as well as periodic re-evaluation and re-examination of one's personal and professional identity. The integration of ethical standards into professional identity is not a one-time exercise but an ongoing commitment to align one's actions with one's stated values. Part of the overall professional identity for an attorney is being a representative of one's clients in addition to being an officer of the legal system itself and a private citizen having special accountability for the quality of justice in society.
As a representative of clients, the lawyer takes on several distinct roles. One of these is as an advisor, providing a client with an informed understanding of the client's legal rights, legal obligations, and the implications of these in the particular situation at hand. As an advisor, the attorney may not need to refer only to legal issues, but may also consider the moral, social, economic, and even political factors that may be relevant to the client's particular situation.
In taking on the advisory role, the attorney need not always offer advice unless it is asked by the client; however, giving candid advice is always mandatory. In the role of advisor, the attorney should keep in mind that advice given in strictly legal terms may not be useful to the client. It is important to remember that the client's decision regarding an issue may involve more than legal considerations. When a situation would be better discussed through consultation with a professional in another field, the attorney should make such a recommendation (for example, medical issues, counseling issues, or financial issues) and should not step outside their area of expertise.
Moreover, an attorney should not advise a client to engage in fraudulent or criminal activity, but may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed plan or action that the client may have. This boundary—between providing comprehensive counsel and refusing to facilitate illegal conduct—requires the attorney to have already engaged in serious self-reflection about their own ethical commitments.
Attorneys are also advocates, and in fact the advocacy role probably precedes the advisor role for most attorneys. As advocates, attorneys represent parties in legal cases by submitting evidence on behalf of their client(s) and making an argument in a court of law to support the interests of their client. While attorneys are often supposed to "zealously" advocate for their clients, this zealousness is not meant to extend to the point of performing illegal, unethical, or immoral actions on behalf of their clients.
Again, one's self-reflection, self-identity, and professional identity help determine the boundaries of this advocacy when issues of ethics and morals may not be crystal clear. Professional responsibility standards provide guidance, but the attorney's own developed sense of professional identity ultimately determines how these standards are applied in specific contexts. Being an advocate for the client, but not necessarily an activist, is the general responsibility of attorneys who act on behalf of individuals in situations where expert legal knowledge is both applicable and a necessity.
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