The MPRE Attorney Ethics Exam...What Happens if you Pass?

   Okay, this is an oldie, but I was reminded of  something from my law school days over this past weekend when my  oldest daughter, who is in her second year of law school, sat for the MPRE, know to the non-lawyer crowd as the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, or, in plain English- the ethics exam.

   I can see it as if yesterday, though it was more like 32 years ago, when, standing in the family kitchen, I told my non-lawyer brother, nine years my senior, that I was going to take the MPRE down at the University of Miami.  Without so much as a pause, he responded, “What happens if you pass?”

    Even more than three decades ago, questionable lawyer ethics tainted the profession.  I must say, that after practicing for all these years, it never ceases to amaze me at the lengths some of my, ugh, I shudder to use the term, “colleagues” and fellow members of the bar, will go through to circumvent that Code of Professional Responsibility that each attorney   pledges to adhere to when he/she is sworn into the Bar.  Actually, let’s be real.  Many of my (ugh) “colleagues” don’t even both to try and circumvent these cannons of ethics; they just downright engage in unethical practices.

    Needless to say, I passed that exam (as one must to become admitted to the Bar) and became a lawyer. Then again, so did all of the other attorneys who I regularly see disregard just about any and every cannon of ethic to which we are sworn to subscribe. 

     So what is going wrong?  First, the MPRE tests whether one has learned the ethical rules.  It does not measure an individual’s moral barometer as to whether the soon-to-be lawyer will actually put these rules into practice.  Second, it just seems that too many lawyers are willing to do anything to “win,” no matter what the cost-and that becomes their personal moral code.  Third, it is, at least at first blush, easier to break the rules than to follow them.  Some attorneys are just plain lazy.  After all, if you can take a shortcut and get to the golf course, well….what’s the difference?

    Please understand some of my colleagues   are extremely ethical, moral and honest, and have the highest integrity.  As with so many other things in life, it is those bad apples that ruin the bunch.

  

    Is there a solution?  For one, maybe attorneys should be required to take an ethics exam after they are admitted to practice at some predetermined period of time, say every ten years.  You know, sort of like a driver’s license re-test.  Maybe someone who is tech savvy can develop an app that does, in fact, measure a person’s ethical barometer.  If anyone knows someone who has the technical know-how, please get them in touch with me.

  

   Beyond that, the bottom line is ethics cannot be taught to 20 somethings; ethics   must be learned, and if those law students did not learn honesty and integrity from the playground in their youth, no course is going to teach it now and no exam is going to test it.

   

   Of course, I am keeping my fingers crossed that my daughter “passed” the MPRE, but I know doing the right thing was instilled in her long ago.   Like her mom, she won’t “win” every case (and any lawyer who tells you he does hasn’t been practicing very long); but if she follows my footsteps into family law,( or really any area of law) then, also like her mom, she will  always try to do the right thing, and that is always something I can promise my clients.  There is no win or amount of money that can take the place of sleeping at night.  So, to my brother, I say, this is what happens when you pass…32 years later I’m still doing the right thing, but then again you knew that…we grew up in the same house.

Cindy Vova
Law Office of Cindy S. Vova, P.A.
Plantation, FL 33322
visit our website: www.vovalaw.com
                             info@vovalaw.com

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