Character and Community: Rispetto as a Virtue in the Tradition of Italian-American Lawyers

Authors

Thomas L. Shaffer, Notre Dame Law School
Mary M. Shaffer

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1989

Publication Information

64 Notre Dame L. Rev. 838 (1989).

Abstract

Our project is to contemplate a discrete piece of applied ethics in the American legal profession, a piece of what one might call Italian-American legal ethics. We propose to describe a moral value for which we will use the Italian word rispetto. Our understanding of rispetto is that it is a virtue, a good habit, through which the person learns, practices, teaches, and remembers his place within the family. We will argue here that the practice of this virtue will allow a modern lawyer to be in and of his or her civic and professional community without loss of dignity and a sense of self.

Comments

Symposium: The Moral Lawyer
Reprinted with permission of the Notre Dame Law Review.

Recommended Citation

Thomas L. Shaffer & Mary M. Shaffer, Character and Community: Rispetto as a Virtue in the Tradition of Italian-American Lawyers, 64 Notre Dame L. Rev. 838 (1989)..
Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/236