How Do Lawyers Serve Human Dignity?

Abstract

The conception of human dignity that prevails within the legal profession is roughly interchangeable with individual autonomy. That is, lawyers serve the cause of dignity by facilitating the client’s autonomy. In this regard, the legal profession’s dignity discourse lacks the nuance and depth that is found in the discourse occurring in other fields, bioethics in particular. As far as it goes, autonomy is a key component of individual dignity, but autonomy does not exhaust the nature or implications of dignity, particularly the narrow conception of autonomy employed widely within the legal profession. The narrowness results, in significant part, from lawyers’ failure to invest in the dialogue necessary to pursue a fully relational sense of client autonomy, rather than a simplistic autonomy of individual self-interest secured through the maximization of legal rights and privileges. In reality, there are multiple layers of human dignity, not all of which are centered on individual autonomy. Whether or not a more authentically relational conception of autonomy can be reclaimed, it is important to articulate how the human orientation toward relationship can help provide substantive content to, and draw professionally relevant implications from, the elusive concept of human dignity.

Keywords: human dignity, professional responsibility, lawyer ethics, legal ethics, legal profession, lawyers and clients