At best, they view such musing as simply a useful tool in developing analytical skills. The competing views of practitioners and academics are analogous to a philosophical discussion of whether there is noise if a tree falls in the forest and no one is present to hear it fall. The disjuncture between the practitioner view and the academic view may extend farther. Some practitioners perceive the legal academic view of law as nothing more than the puffing of supercilious academics who like to justify their existence by making things artificially complex. The lawyer's ethical obligation is to represent her client as zealously as possible .
Practitioners also have a different purpose within the law from legal academics.
Lawyers who toil daily in the legal trenches rarely focus on ascertaining the theoretically correct result in a dispute. Rather, the result they must advocate is determined once the client walks through the office door and retains them. The lawyer's ethical obligation is to represent her client as zealously as possible. Therefore, the lawyer is duty bound to advance any and all reasonable legal arguments to support her client. Whether the client should prevail is not an issue.