I'll bite, and put forward the proposition that the morality of pawning one's license or working for a firm is somewhat besides the point. If law is transcendental nonsense, so too is morality. Both are post-facto ways to rationalize reality.

To paraphrase Sartre, people use morality to justify their choices, but clothing one's choices in morality doesn't remove personal responsibility. Whether or not working for a firm confers 100% of bad karma, or 80%, or just 20% if you leave within three years, isn't really resolvable. Ultimately, what matters is that you are able to live with the choices you make.

As I understand it, Eben's point is not so much that one should avoid a firm because of the danger of moral corruption, but because it's a lazy and wasteful choice that squanders your potential and freedom. It doesn't serve your own interests. There are things that we'd all like to do and achieve before we die, and sitting in an office for decades as a well-paid servant isn't high on most lists. While many people, myself included, find the proposition of doing unsavory things for money unpalatable, I don't think the major issue that's motivating Eben is how to help us keep our souls clean. It's the tendency for the majority of promising lawyers to grow complicit in a job that restricts individual agency and sharply curtails potential, thereby eliminating the very people who could create change and institute meaningful reforms on a multitude of issues.

For the record, I could be very wrong regarding Eben's motives. As the class progresses, I'm finding that I'm fairly bad at figuring out what he's thinking.

-- RonMazor - 06 Feb 2010