The Spirit of Professionalism
![handle is hein.journals/mineral46 and id is 185 raw text is: 8. The Spirit of Professionalism
Honorable Joe Giarrusso, Jr.
Magistrate Commissioner, Div. 5
Orleans Parish Criminal District Court
McGlinchey Stafford, PLLC (Of Counsel),
New Orleans, Louisiana
I. The Ties that Bind Us
A. Decorum
Deco:'um has to do with the personal manner according to which
people conduct themselves appropriately to a situation.
Deco:um includes courtesy, etiquette and good manners but also
a good manner, a gentlemanly or ladylike personality.
Decoum looks in two directions: towards the self and towards
other people.
(a) First of all we have to ask whether a particular mode of
behavior is compatible with our own dignity and self-respect,
and with our growth towards becoming better lawyers. Second,
we have to ask, how will this behavior affect others?
(b) In looking towards others, decorum asks what effect this
behavior will have on others? Will it disturb them? Will it
cause them pain in any way? Embarrassment? Difficulty?
Lawyerly decorum is a basic expression of fraternal charity.
John Cardinal Newman once wrote: It is almost a definition of a
gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.
The social philosopher Ortega Gasset has observed that courtesy
flourishes in countries where people live closely together, the only other
alternative being communal self-destruction:
Courtesy ... is a social technique that eases the collision and
strife and friction that sociality is. Around each individual it
creates a. series of tiny buffers that lessens the other's bump
against us and ours against the other. The best proof that this is
so lies in the fact that courtesy was able to attain its most
perfect, richest, and most refined forms- in countries whose
population density is very great. Hence, it reached its
maximum where that is highest - namely in the Far East, in
China ard Japan, where [people] have to live too close to one
This entir: section is based on and adapted from Charles Cummings'
Monastic Practices.
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The Spirit of Professionalism
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