Deference to authority: how seniority influences how attorneys view professional obligations

Abstract In our increasingly transactional world—where tasks routinely involve individuals, firms, and governments—lawyers play an integral role. A well-functioning society depends on a commitment to the rule of law, which lawyers help promote, ex post and ex ante. For this reason, our legal system also relies on lawyers acting in accordance with their professional obligations. While legal profession scholars have richly explored how lawyers should conduct themselves, how lawyers navigate ethical challenges in practice settings remains underexplored. This article seeks to bridge this gap. We conduct an experiment involving licensed lawyers in Alberta, Canada, in which we randomly assign respondents two fact scenarios in which ethically questionable conduct is committed by either a senior or junior colleague within the respondents’ firm. We find respondents from both groups provided near-identical responses for each scenario when asked how they would act. And when asked how most other lawyers would respond, each group responded similarly but, in each scenario, believed their fellow lawyers were less likely to find the colleague acted in violation of the professional rules. This gap was largest when respondents evaluated the conduct of a senior colleague whom most believed had violated the professional rules. Our findings suggest that lawyers believe the professional rules constrain their own actions more than those of their professional peers. In the real-world, where lawyers of varying seniority routinely work with one another on behalf of clients, these contrasting self-other perceptions may influence how they act in real-world, ethically challenging contexts.