And it is how citizens, and particularly lawyers, ought to conduct our public discourse. Consider debates on proposals offered to improve or advance the legal system. Few spectacles are more destructive of our professional standing than for a lawyer, or group of lawyers, to take a position on proposals to change the law based simply on the lawyer's own financial interests. The profession and the nation deserve your detached judgment, not your self-interested lobbying. Civility, the third principle, is related to rationally, if not a part of it.
Civility is a popular word because it comes without political baggage or partisan implications.
That is the whole point. Its very acceptability shows it is fundamental, not trivial. It is not some casual idea, some little word to which we make a brief bow before rushing off to fractious debate. It is an end in itself. Civility has deep roots in the idea of respect for the individual.