Lat announced late afternoon yesterday that the MPRE results are out.  Had he not, I would have never know, despite my deep, abiding concern for legal ethics.  Oh yeah, in case you’re unaware, MPRE stands for the Multi-State Professional Responsibility Exam.  It’s the component of the bar exam that tests legal ethics.

I was in the first class that ever took the MPRE.  We had a required legal ethics course in law school that, if memory serves, went on for one semester.  The course of study consisted of one sentence, repeated over and over.  “When in doubt, screw the lawyer.”  This was the  Lester Brickman school of legal ethics.  The lawprof also said something about lawyers not being a bus, but no one paid any attention to this analogy.

The MPRE is not considered a particularly rigorous examination.  There really isn’t much of a need for it to be, since in theory ethics really shouldn’t require all that much to learn.  But as with all things legal, the devil is in the details. 

I can recall taking the MPRE with my law school chums.  At one point, I remember going to the restroom and finding a friend in their.  He was one of the smartest guys in my class.  He was smoking a little weed to kill time before he got to the test.  I asked him what he thought, and he responded, “good stuff.” [edited version of his comment].  We weren’t talking about the same thing.

Using the full gamut of my education in legal ethics, I completed the test promptly and did what all good law students do after completing any portion of a bar exam.  I got a beer.  Some of my classmates discussed the nuances of a particular fact pattern present by the test.  They struggled and argued to find a way that the lawyer’s conduct would be acceptable, testing the outer edges of ethics to see how close they could tread.  I drank my beer.

When I was finally asked what I thought, I told them that it was unethical and the lawyer was screwed.  This started the ruckus all over again.  Even then, I seemed to have an ability to provoke discussion.  I sat silently, nursing my beer as they explained to me, using numerous examples and analogies, why they were right and I was wrong.  If they had 8 by 10 glossies with circles and arrows, they would have used them too.

When they finally fell silent, having spent their last ounce of energy arguing their case, I just shook my head.  Nope, the lawyer is screwed.  Finally, one exasperated friend asked, “why?”  I answered, “because on the MPRE, the lawyer is always screwed.”

When I received my score for the test, I was shocked that it was ridiculously high.  I remember wondering whether I had received the highest score in the state, it was that good.

It was also that meaningless.  Sure, you can’t adhere to the various ethical proscriptions that apply to lawyers if you don’t know what they are.  It serves a purpose to learn the Code of Professional Responsibility.  But knowing ethics, and having ethics, are two entirely separate things.  The former takes study.  The latter takes integrity.  There is no class to teach integrity.

Skimming the comments over at Above the Law, it appears that most of the Biglaw wannabes received a passing score on the MPRE.  Whether they have ethics, and will engage in the practice of law with integrity, is another question.