The three ancient learned professions were the law, medicine, and ministry.  The word profession comes from the Latin professus, meaning to have affirmed publicly.  As one legal scholar has explained, “The term evolved to describe occupations that required new entrants to take an oath professing their dedication to the ideals and practices associated with a learned calling.”¹  Many attempts have been made to define a profession in general and lawyer professionalism in particular.  The most commonly cited is the definition developed by the late Dean Roscoe Pound of Harvard Law School:

The term refers to a group . . . pursuing a learned art as a common calling in the spirit of public service — no less a public service because it may incidentally be a means of livelihood.  Pursuit of the learned art in the spirit of a public service is the primary purpose.²

Teaching and Learning Professionalism, the 1996 Report of the Professionalism Committee of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, expands the Pound definition and particularizes it for lawyers:

A professional lawyer is an expert in law pursuing a learned art in service to clients and in the spirit of public service; and engaging in these pursuits as part of a common calling to promote justice and public good.³

Retired Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Clarke defined a professional as “a member of a group which provides an essential service in which the public has a vital interest and which requires of the performer extensive training and the exercise of qualitative judgment.”⁴

Retired Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher often explained his sense of professionalism as follows:

I have concluded that professionalism, in a legal sense, is to a great extent practicing the golden rule.  It is not — do my opponent in before my opponent does me in, — but rather, it is do unto your fellow attorneys, the judges and society as you would have them do unto you.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court gave us this definition:

To me, the essence of professionalism is a commitment to develop one’s skills to the fullest and to apply that responsibly to the problems at hand.  Professionalism requires adherence to the highest ethical standards of conduct and a willingness to subordinate narrow self-interest in pursuit of the more fundamental goal of public service.  Because of the tremendous power they wield in our system, lawyers must never forget that their duty to serve their clients fairly and skillfully takes priority over the personal accumulation of wealth.  At the same time, lawyers must temper bold advocacy for their clients with a sense of responsibility to the larger legal system [that] strives, however imperfectly, to provide justice for all.⁵

1. DEBORAH L. RHODE, PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY: ETHICS BY THE PERVASIVE METHOD 39 (1994)

2. ROSCOE POUND, THE LAWYER FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERN TIMES 5 (1953)

3. AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SECTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR, Teaching and Learning Professionalism, Report of the Professionalism Committee 6 (1996)

4. HAROLD G. CLARKE, Professionalism: Repaying the Debt, 25 Georgia Bar Journal 170 (1989)

5. COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND PROFESSIONALISM COURSE FOR NEW ADMITTEES TO THE MARYLAND BAR, Professionalism Above and Beyond Ethics 15 (1992)

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It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.