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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magaz ... f=magazine

Leave those causes off your resumes, folks.

Like always, I find Cohen's advice simplistic and wanting, but not nearly as much as the question. So long as the entire partnership knows about your preference, you should hire whoever you like, even if it means hiring someone's whose views are the same as yours (not certain it's the best business model, but that's another matter). It's not publicly held/govt and nobody (unfortunately) has a right to a firm job. You do have duties to your partners, though.

What I really find frightening is that the partner feels the need to ask a columnist about his actions. Whatever you're valuations, you should be able to analyze the obligations and consequences on your own, no?

Anyhow, it seems that applicants shouldn't be too assumptive of the rationality of HPs.

Did you notice that the question below was whether a doctor could ethically refuse to treat a med mal attorney because he doesn't like med mal attorneys on account of his wife having been sued, and the columnist said that IS okay? You can't deny someone a job because you hate their political views but you can refuse to treat a seriously ill person because you don't like their profession . . . Ridiculous.

LOL

Come on now we all know that every hiring partner fights tooth and nail to lower their taxes.

Federalists =/= neo-conservative right. There are so many socially liberal judges who are federalists.

raveler wrote:Did you notice that the question below was whether a doctor could ethically refuse to treat a med mal attorney because he doesn't like med mal attorneys on account of his wife having been sued, and the columnist said that IS okay? You can't deny someone a job because you hate their political views but you can refuse to treat a seriously ill person because you don't like their profession . . . Ridiculous.

Did you even read the article? The situations are totally different. A doctor can refuse to treat a patient under ordinary circumstances if he doesn't feel like he can be impartial/objective. There's nothing wrong with that. If it was an emergency, then yes the doctor would be obligated to treat him. It's not like he's just sitting around watching the guy die. Someone else will treat the guy.

It's generally illegal in CA, as I understand it, to discriminate in hiring based on political affiliation or views (or maybe it's only one or the other). Which is dumb, but there you have it. Not sure it's easy to draw a bright line between religious persuasion and political persuasion.

I'd fire somebody who did my hiring and discriminated irrationally. But there may be situations when views are relevant - like getting a Marxist to do corporate toxic torts defense.

NayBoer wrote:I'd fire somebody who did my hiring and discriminated irrationally. But there may be situations when views are relevant - like getting a Marxist to do corporate toxic torts defense.

Or a Yale grad to defend the Redskins.

While it leads to some of the claims of "Old Boys Network," there is something to be said about working (60+ hours a week) with people with whom you get along. Personally, I haven't noticed that I get along any better or worse with members of the Federalist Society than the Constitutional Society (though I typically don't get along with anyone who's a complete zealot of anything); but that's a empirical not an ethical issue. So I pretty much disagree with Cohen, at least without a much more complicated ethical argument (and his DOJ analogy is completely incorrect).

The dude says that his partners are FSers, yet wants to reject someone on this grounds. How can he not see this as being patently against "a punctilio of honor most sensitive?" Now I know why the Rules of Professional Conduct explicate things that should be evident to anyone with 3 communicating brain cells; not everyone meets that requirement.

I kind of suspect he knew what he was doing was unethical and that the was looking for an (crappy) authority to validate him. Didn't work, but he stuck with his plan anyhow.

hoopsguy6 wrote:

raveler wrote:Did you notice that the question below was whether a doctor could ethically refuse to treat a med mal attorney because he doesn't like med mal attorneys on account of his wife having been sued, and the columnist said that IS okay? You can't deny someone a job because you hate their political views but you can refuse to treat a seriously ill person because you don't like their profession . . . Ridiculous.

Did you even read the article? The situations are totally different. A doctor can refuse to treat a patient under ordinary circumstances if he doesn't feel like he can be impartial/objective. There's nothing wrong with that. If it was an emergency, then yes the doctor would be obligated to treat him. It's not like he's just sitting around watching the guy die. Someone else will treat the guy.

Yes, I read the article, and I realize it's not a violation of a professional ethics code. But neither is a private employer hiring on the basis of political preference -- it's not like that's a protected class like race, at least not under federal law. The point is, I certainly find that more morally objectionable to refuse to treat someone than to refuse to hire someone. I don't really see any grave moral wrong with not wanting to work with someone who has extreme political views, even if it is unfair. The harm you're doing to the person really isn't that substantial. Refusing to treat someone as a doctor is simply a much bigger deal, and I think should be subject to a higher standard. And while I recognize the need for impartiality there, it's not like the guy in the article was dealing with THE attorney who brought suit against his wife.

And how do you know that refusal isn't going to end up with the guy dying? The only thing we could maybe infer from the article was that it wasn't an emergency room situation. But the guy could have been a very particular specialist, the only person in the area who knew how to do a particular surgery, etc. The article simply doesn't contain any information from which you could conclude that the guy will be fine -- it was the advice columnist who drew that conclusion, and I don't think rightfully. If anything, the fact that he was afraid of suit and guilty about refusal could lead you to believe that the guy was in need to serious medical help -- I wouldn't imagine that many people are suing, say, their dermatologists for malpractice on a regular basis. And if you allow a doctor to refuse treatment to the whole class of med mal lawyers simply because they might be biased and the lawyers could get treatment elsewhere, well, isn't every doctor horribly biased against med mal lawyers? If ALL doctors could refuse ALL med mal treatment based on bias then the lawyers WOULDN'T be able to get treatment anywhere.

You sure are awfully snitty over it, though. How dare anyone on the internet interpret a newspaper article or ethical scenario differently from you

raveler wrote:

hoopsguy6 wrote:

raveler wrote:Did you notice that the question below was whether a doctor could ethically refuse to treat a med mal attorney because he doesn't like med mal attorneys on account of his wife having been sued, and the columnist said that IS okay? You can't deny someone a job because you hate their political views but you can refuse to treat a seriously ill person because you don't like their profession . . . Ridiculous.

Did you even read the article? The situations are totally different. A doctor can refuse to treat a patient under ordinary circumstances if he doesn't feel like he can be impartial/objective. There's nothing wrong with that. If it was an emergency, then yes the doctor would be obligated to treat him. It's not like he's just sitting around watching the guy die. Someone else will treat the guy.

Yes, I read the article, and I realize it's not a violation of a professional ethics code. But neither is a private employer hiring on the basis of political preference -- it's not like that's a protected class like race, at least not under federal law. The point is, I certainly find that more morally objectionable to refuse to treat someone than to refuse to hire someone. I don't really see any grave moral wrong with not wanting to work with someone who has extreme political views, even if it is unfair. The harm you're doing to the person really isn't that substantial. Refusing to treat someone as a doctor is simply a much bigger deal, and I think should be subject to a higher standard. And while I recognize the need for impartiality there, it's not like the guy in the article was dealing with THE attorney who brought suit against his wife.

And how do you know that refusal isn't going to end up with the guy dying? The only thing we could maybe infer from the article was that it wasn't an emergency room situation. But the guy could have been a very particular specialist, the only person in the area who knew how to do a particular surgery, etc. The article simply doesn't contain any information from which you could conclude that the guy will be fine -- it was the advice columnist who drew that conclusion, and I don't think rightfully. If anything, the fact that he was afraid of suit and guilty about refusal could lead you to believe that the guy was in need to serious medical help -- I wouldn't imagine that many people are suing, say, their dermatologists for malpractice on a regular basis. And if you allow a doctor to refuse treatment to the whole class of med mal lawyers simply because they might be biased and the lawyers could get treatment elsewhere, well, isn't every doctor horribly biased against med mal lawyers? If ALL doctors could refuse ALL med mal treatment based on bias then the lawyers WOULDN'T be able to get treatment anywhere.

You sure are awfully snitty over it, though. How dare anyone on the internet interpret a newspaper article or ethical scenario differently from you

What part of my post comes out as "snitty"? You seem far more wound up about this based on that mini-essay you wrote.

I simply asked if you read the article because you seem to have trouble with RC. How do I know the refusal isn't going to end with the guy dying?
FTA: "This physician learned that the would-be patient “was able to find another physician, so he’s not out there in the cold.”


Obviously it would be a problem if every doctor refused this guy for treatment, or if he was seriously ill and couldn't find treatment. That clearly isn't the case here. You shouldn't overgeneralize this one specific case into "OMG doctors are letting random people die all the time".

As for hiring based on political affiliation, you're right that it's not protected under federal law, but some states (such as CA) do have statutes that prohibit it.