Biglaw associates are fungible cogs. In any economy (but especially this one), if the entire CLS class refused to join Biglaw, the positions we forsook would just be filled up with graduates from other schools. The net amount of evil produced by Biglaw work could be said to be the same whether we participate personally or not.

But everyone considers themselves more conscientious than the next guy, right? Wouldn't we be able to mitigate the evil of a Biglaw position better by being there in person rather than letting someone else do it? You wouldn't be able to directly sabotage, of course...but you'd be a voice in the room able to influence events for the better.

Consider: it's 1942 and you're a German youth. Do you join the SS or flee Europe? Assuming there would have been someone else ready to take your place in the SS, you could do more good by joining. You'd be able to save lives working on the inside, if you could only resist the Stanford Prison Experiment effect. If you did the "evil" thing, you'd make the world a better place. If you fled, you'd help no one.

So I don't think Professor Moglen's approach is the only way to look at the issue. It does make intuitive sense to compare the net evil one does as a Biglaw attorney to the amount one is able to donate to charity. But we could instead compare the amount of evil one could mitigate as a Biglaw attorney to the amount of good one could produce elsewhere. Basically: working within the system can be better than throwing rocks at it from outside.

-- GavinSnyder - 27 Feb 2009