Counsellor At Law Case Study

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In the legal system and real world, people are faced with many decisions and or situations. Most people probably do not give a second thought, or bat an eye, as to the type of decision or situation they are making or are in. The first category thought about is legality and the second is ethicality. Most people think that if it’s illegal, it’s unethical, and if it’s legal, it is ethical. This is not always the case. As shown in Counsellor at Law, sometimes these categories do not overlap as initially thought. In Counsellor at Law, George Simon was faced with a decision as to whether he should lie and make up an alibi for his client, a younger man who swore he would straighten up, so the client could lead a better life, or let him go to prison (Counsellor At Law). He chose to make up an alibi for his client, so he would not go to jail because he believed the man would stay true to his word, and he did. What Simon did was extremely illegal and nearly resulted in his disbarment as a lawyer, but Simon knew it was ethical and the right thing to do because he knew that the young man would indeed straighten up and it would not be fair for him to go to jail. At first thought, illegal yet ethical actions almost seem like an oxymoron. However, when …show more content…

They can be classified into a few different categories. Decisions/situations can be categorized into ethical and illegal, unethical and illegal, ethical and legal, and unethical and legal. Most of the behaviors are either in ethical and legal or unethical and illegal, but a select few are in the other two categories, unethical and legal or ethical and illegal. Finally, instead of looking at things through a legal/ethical or illegal/unethical perspective, they need to be looked at through all

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