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39 Ind. L. Rev. 493 (2005-2006)
Ten Vital Virtues for American Public Lawyers

handle is hein.journals/indilr39 and id is 503 raw text is: TEN VITAL VIRTUES FOR AMERICAN PUBLIC LAWYERS ROBERT F. BLOMQUIST* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. What Is an American Public Lawyer? .......................... 497 A. Definitional and Historical Background .................... 497 B. A Modem Functional Approach ........................... 500 C. Stretching the Limits: Public Law Dimensions of Private Lawyering ......................................... 503 II. Ten Vital Lawyerly Virtues .................................. 505 A. To Be Positive or Negative? .............................. 505 B. A Ranked List ......................................... 506 1. Balance ........................................... 506 2. Integrity .......................................... 507 3. Idealism .......................................... 507 4. Compassion ....................................... 508 5. Courage .......................................... 509 6. Creativity ......................................... 511 7. Energy ........................................... 512 8. Justice ............................................ 513 9. D iscipline ......................................... 515 10. Perseverance ....................................... 516 IlI. Some Special Virtuous Challenges for Public Lawyers ............ 517 A. Life in a Fish Bowl ..................................... 517 B. Multiple Constituencies ................................. 518 C. Low Relative Pay ...................................... 518 D. Temptations to Grandstand .............................. 519 E. Herculean Expectations ................................. 519 Conclusion .................................................. 520 In the tradition of the great books of the last five millennia of human civilization,' virtue and vice have been persistent and vital themes.2 * Professor of Law, Valparaiso University School of Law. B.S., 1973, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School); J.D., 1977, Cornell University. My thanks go to my law students over the last twenty years who have inspired the meditations contained in this Article. 1. Robert Maynard Hutchins, former president of the University of Chicago, once described the continued engagement by each new generation with the great books of the past as a Great Conversation. Specifically, Hutchins wrote: Until lately the West has regarded it as self-evident that the road to education lay through great books. No [person] was educated unless he was acquainted with the masterpieces of his tradition. There never was very much doubt in anybody's mind about which the masterpieces were. They were the books that had endured and that the common voice of mankind called the finest creations, in writing, of the Western mind. In the course of history, from epoch to epoch, new books have been written that have