When an individual discovers that his peers are routinely involved in corrupt practices and he is urged to do the same, he either conforms or risks the status of a pariah for his honesty. Peer pressure also serves to provide the false rationalization that since 'everybody does it' it is somehow alright. Let us examine how temptation impacts lawyers worldwide and United States lawyers in particular. Lawyers' degree of temptation. Some lawyers handle large sums of money for others.
Lawyers are part of the social elite.
They see better than most how the rich live. To these lawyers the level of temptation that their profession provides worldwide is among the very highest of any profession. In America, the power achieved by the legal profession's control of government has enormously increased all of those temptations for all lawyers. Every opportunity that can bring income to the members of the profession under color of law, has been developed more completely here than anywhere else. So has the temptation to be dishonest in the United States .