The problems are distributed to entering students well before the program begins. On each of two days, after an introductory lecture on ethics and the practice of law, the students separate into groups and discuss the problems. Discussion leaders include practicing lawyers and faculty members who have had practice experience. There is skepticism, both among lawyers and among the general population, about whether the bar can screen out unethical persons and whether law schools and the bar can promote an ethical disposition through teaching. Clearly, it is not easy to screen for character.
Many unethical persons can pass that filter.
One's ethics depend on character, and one's character, these skeptics say, already is formed by the time the student has graduated from college. As for the others, the skeptics say, training will do little more than teach the unethical how to avoid disbarment. Law schools have some answers for these skeptics. First, an unfortunate part of professional training involves the alteration of a person's way of looking at the world and the problems of people. In part, this training objectifies humans and their problems.