The University of St. Thomas

January, 2011

From White Collar to Green Jumpsuit

By: Acts of Kindness

Published on: Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

The following post was submitted by Professor Hank Shea. It offers the personal reflections of a former attorney from Virginia, Stephen M. Gunther, who is now serving time at Federal Prison Camp in Butner, North Carolina. Mr. Gunther reached out to Professor Shea in the following email:

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Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 6:57 AM
To: Shea, Henry J.
Subject:

Dear Mr. Shea:

My name is Stephen Gunther. On March 25, 2010, I pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and am scheduled to be sentenced on June 21, 2010. I was an attorney in the Commonwealth of Virginia for just over 9 years, prior to contacting the bar and surrendering my license March. I have a strong desire to use my situation to help others avoid a similar situation. I believe that my situation may be of interest because there was very little financial gain on my part. I believe that a “people pleasing” personality (not good for lawyers), a desire to increase business, getting caught up in the frenzy of the housing market, ignorance, and failure to properly manage staff led to my situation.

I am trying very hard to handle my situation with honesty and integrity. I am looking at my situation as an opportunity to try to counsel others to identify specific traits that can lead to fraud. Last week, I spoke to about 60 real estate investors for about an hour and a half on real estate fraud. The meeting could have continued for at least another hour with the number of questions they had. I am going to continue to do this as much as I can before and after prison

I would love the opportunity to contribute whether it be before, during, or after I am in prison. I appreciate all you are doing and would like the opportunity to discuss any contribution I could make to your cause.

Sincerely,
Stephen M. Gunther

“Although Hank Shea has never met Stephen Gunther, Hank spoke with him shortly after receiving this email and suggested they correspond with each other on how Mr. Gunther might assist others in learning from his failures. On June 21, 2010, Stephen Gunther was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment that he presently is serving at the Federal Prison Camp in Butner, NC. He recently submitted the following journal entry regarding his situation.”

By Stephen M. Gunther

In October of 2000, I received notice I had passed the bar exam in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was one of the best days of my life – a day I will never forget. It was Sunday afternoon and I had just arrived home at my house in Virginia Beach after attending a Virginia Tech football game the previous day. Upon pulling into the driveway, I went straight to the mailbox and saw that the envelope I had been waiting for had finally arrived. I remember how afraid I was to open it. I actually held the envelope up to the light and saw the words “Congratulations…” Excitedly, I tore the letter open and found out that I achieved my goal of becoming a lawyer. I will never forget the feeling I had at that moment.

Since that day in 2000, my life and career have taken a turn that I never saw coming. I am no longer Stephen M. Gunther, Virginia State Bar No. 45428. I am Stephen M. Gunther, Inmate No. 75516-083, at Federal Prison Camp in Butner, NC. Through these postings and Professor Shea’s ethics program, I plan to describe how I got where I am and the lessons I have learned along the way in the hope that my situation can be used as an example to other law and business students to prevent them from encountering a similar fate.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in Hank Shea’s ethics program. I actually found out about the program by mistake. I attended law school at St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami, FL. I was on the internet trying to pull the website for my law school to contact them about the possibility of speaking to their students about my situation. I had no idea that there was a law school called the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and I inadvertently went to the wrong home page. I realized my mistake rather quickly as it is not too easy to confuse Minneapolis and Miami. I did, however, see the information about the ethics program on the site. It was the type of program for which I was looking. I decided to send Professor Shea an email to see if he had any interest in my participation.

Professor Shea and I exchanged a few emails and then had a telephone conversation. It did not take long to realize that we are both on the same page. We both share a strong desire to promote ethics in the legal profession. I informed him that I was due to be sentenced a few weeks later but would like the opportunity to participate in his program during my imprisonment and after my release from prison. I am actually writing this post as I lie in my upper bunk at the prison camp.

Almost immediately after my situation first came about, I came to the decision that I would use my experience as an opportunity to educate students and young professionals on scenarios that can lead to a fraudulent situation or ethical dilemma. As a result, I spoke to ten large groups throughout Virginia and North Carolina prior to my incarceration. I was also videotaped by a Regent University School of Law professor for his Professional Responsibility students to watch on their first day of class. My wife, who is a Regent Law alumna and an attorney licensed in both Virginia and North Carolina, spoke briefly and answered the students’ questions. The presentation had quite an impact on the students. The following are some of their reflections:

“I cannot speak for everyone in the class, but I found their stories compelling and a real ‘eye-opener’ as far as the ramifications that seemingly ‘simple’ mistakes can make for us lawyers. We are held to a much higher standard of scrutiny and to be made aware of that on the first day is foundational to such a course as Professional Responsibility. Please let the Gunthers know that their story has impacted my view on the legal profession and that they are in our prayers.”
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The experiences I have had over the past year are things I never thought possible. The day I first saw the paperwork styled “The United States of America v. Stephen Martin Gunther” really hit me hard. How could my government be against me? That is just one of the hundreds of other things that I hope you never have to experience during your career. To close this posting, I will leave you with the top ten worst experiences I had through this ordeal.

“It was a great presentation because it really hit home the fact that Professional Ethics can dramatically change your life if not followed, and it can happen to those who are not intending to do anything wrong. It certainly made me want to learn everything I could about Professional Responsibility!”

“It was a great way to start off the class, and very helpful in showing the standard we need to set for ourselves in critically evaluating both our actions and our staff’s actions—especially in fast-paced, high-volume transaction situations.”

“I really appreciated the video interview for the first day of class. It really helped to instill in me that “not everything will be intuitive.” Along the same lines, that this probably happens more to people who are not trying to break the law. I appreciate Steve’s honesty and willingness to share his experience with us.”

“I thought the interview, combined with Mrs. Gunther’s speech at the end, was a powerful way to illustrate the importance of always being vigilant in the practice of law to make sure one is not breaching an ethical code. What made it most impactful was how it seemed that just being busy can perhaps make one a little careless–and that slight carelessness can have huge repercussions. It was a little scary, knowing that it could easily be any one of us. The message I took from it was that I must always keep my guard up, and use the ‘smell test’ as Mr. Gunther advised. Thank you for making the interview part of our learning experience.”

10. The day the FBI first showed up in my office – You have no idea that they are coming. Picture going about your ordinary day and the FBI shows up and wants to question you about files that closed 3-4 years ago. That’s how it begins. I never expected to ever have to talk to the FBI during my career. Let’s just say that it is a very stressful experience.

9. The day my attorney told me that I would likely have to serve time – It seemed surreal to me. He told me that because I was a lawyer, the defense of ignorance would be very difficult. He told me that I would held to a higher standard because of my fiduciary responsibility. For that reason, he recommended that I accept the government’s plea agreement.

8. The day my story first appeared in the newspaper – You will never realize how inaccurate the newspaper is until you are the subject. I was never contacted by the reporters to have the opportunity to comment. I had floods of phone calls from clients and friends asking what was happening. This was definitely a bad day.

7. The day I had to appear in court and plead guilty to the crime – As an attorney, this is particularly humiliating.

6. The day I first saw paperwork styled “The United States of America v. Stephen Martin Gunther” – enough said.

5. The day the FBI returned to my office and informed me that they were moving forward with a case against me – January 7, 2010, I will never forget that day.

4. The day I sent a fax to the Virginia State Bar notifying them that I was surrendering my law license because I was pleading guilty to a felony.

3. The day I received notice from the Virginia State Bar that I was no longer a lawyer.

2. The day I had to sit down with my 16-year-old son and tell him that my career was over and that I was likely going to prison.

1. The day I had to report to prison and had to leave my wife and kids.

Now for the next several months, my tailored suits have been traded for an olive green prison uniform. My career which I worked so hard to achieve is now gone. I sleep in a dorm with about 90 drug dealers and keep all my belongings in a locker. Despite all of this I am very optimistic about the future and I am very much looking forward to working with Hank Shea’s ethics program.

Posted in Opinion or General Interest | 2 Comments »

The Meaning of Professionalism in Law: A Preview of Research at the Holloran Center

By: Acts of Kindness

Published on: Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Part 1. The Meaning of Professionalism: A Preview of Our Research and Approach

(c) Verna E. Monson, Ph.D., Research Fellow
Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions

The following is Part 1 of a four-part series that offers a preview of the Holloran Center’s research on professionalism in law. We welcome your thoughts or questions. Verna Monson, mons0076@stthomas.edu

The Holloran Center is observing some milestones this winter with our research agenda: One, an article on professionalism and its relationship to effectiveness in legal practice, just published in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics; a second article on entering law students’ understanding of professionalism, in press with the Journal of the Legal Profession; and three, the completion of interviews with 12 exemplary attorneys and 7 alumni, plus an survey of 40 alumni, all focused on the meaning of professionalism. This four-part blog series previews some highlights from our results. This research stems from the Carnegie Foundation’s report on the importance of ethical professional formation or professionalism, and the need for law schools to focus on scholarship and research on how best to foster its development in law school.

Part 1 gives an overview of the theory that guides our research, from education in the professions and moral psychology. Part 2 reviews our approach to assessing identity formation. Part 3 delves into one of the themes that emerged through the data analysis process, that of the role of mentors in fostering growth of professionalism, along with the implications for women entering the legal profession. In Part 4, the connection between the growth of professionalism, ethical climate in law firms, and impact of gender stereotypes and bias is discussed, drawing upon some recent research findings out of Stanford University, a summary which is contained in Discover magazine’s blog. In the full versions of our research articles, there will, of course, be many more themes and topics addressed.

Last summer, Professor Neil Hamilton and I conducted interviews with professionalism award winners recognized as exemplars by their peers through Minnesota state and local bar associations. Ten interviewees worked in large and medium law firms, and two were from small not-for-profit agencies. All were randomly selected from lists obtained through the web. How do some of the exemplary lawyers in the Twin Cities think about professionalism?

To funnel almost 100 pages of interview transcript data into a single sentence might look like the following: The meaning of professionalism in law evolves from less to more complex as lawyers deal with the internal conflict that occurs in the process of defining the self and one’s professional role. Note that our focus in the final analysis was more about the experience and stories of these lawyers that related to professionalism, than about their personality characteristics or upbringing. However, our exemplary lawyers did come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some were more extroverted, some introverted. We found exemplary professionalism to be a phenomenon that cuts across personality, background, or religious background, and is instead unified by core tenets that comprise a more complex, manifestation of professionalism.

Where We Are Coming From: Theoretical and Empirical Grounding
We drew upon the work of Mickey Bebeau at the University of Minnesota, a nationally recognized scholar on ethics education in the professions, whose work in development and validation of assessments of moral capacities provided us with a guide. Mickey’s work focuses on moral issues in the context of the professions. The centerpiece of her work is the curriculum and assessments used in dental ethics programs, based on the Four Component Model (FCM) of moral behavior of the late James Rest. The FCM states that awareness of a moral problem is necessary before the problem can be addressed through reasoning and justifying our decisions. One must also be internally motivated to follow-through on one’s decisions, and possess the interpersonal ability to carry out the plan of action.

Mickey led ethicists and exemplary practitioners in a process of defining the highest levels of ethical decisions in the profession of dentistry. Similarly, through our interviews with exemplary attorneys, we are taking a first step in defining the highest levels of professionalism in law. In the future, we plan on further replication with expert groups, including judges and law professors.

Why did we choose the FCM? Why not an approach that draws on virtues, ethical theory, or personality traits? We chose the FCM because (1) it integrates thought and emotion, (2) it takes the view that people are capable of change, growth, or development, with education and with sufficient challenges; (3) it is associated with best practices in the field of measurement and assessment; and (4) it encompasses multiple variables associated with moral development, including motivation, perception, religion, interpersonal skills, and religion, to name a few.

When we speak with audiences about our work, particularly those unfamiliar with moral psychology, we’re sometimes asked if our approach is one that leads to moral relativism – that no one moral stance is superior to another’s. The answer is no, but we’re not surprised by the question. In recent years, a wave of interest in “social intuitionist” moral theory occurred in scientific journals, as well as the popular and trade press, led by psychologist Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia. Social intuitionist theory posits that most moral decision making results primarily from intuition or emotion, not reason. Haidt contends that most moral reasoning is a post hoc justification process. The idea suggests that moral decisions spring forth from the least evolved or complex part of our minds, leading to a view of morality as an individualistic endeavor, unmoored from core social values that hold society together. David Brooks, op-ed columnist from the New York Times, got on the bandwagon last year declaring “The End of Philosophy” – stating there is a new “emotional approach to morality.” In his critique of Haidt’s theory in his new book, “The Moral Landscape,” neuroscientist Sam Harris states:

Haidt is right to notice that the brain’s emotional circuitry often governs our moral intuitions … but it does not follow that there are no right and wrong answers to questions of morality. (p. 89)

Haidt’s more recent writing contains some self-admitted contradictions, such as “Morality is universal, yet culturally variable.” Noting the universal need for social cooperation and the moral implications that are essentially universal, Haidt calls for further research on the social aspects of morality, and in particular, the role of religion. For example, in a 2007 article in Science magazine, Haidt points out research on religiosity and the brain. Citing research of Andrew Newberg and his colleagues, authors of “Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief,” he points out that these researchers “found that religious experiences often involved decreased activity in brain areas that maintain maps of the self’s boundaries and position, consistent with widespread reports that mystical experiences involve feelings of merging with God or the universe.” We find this recent scholarship valuable, but not necessarily new. Jim Rest’s Four Component Model foreshadowed the importance of emotion, cognition, and the role of social institutions in fostering enduring values and perspective taking as early as 1983.

To summarize, we are building on a work in ethics education that utilizes a conceptual approach that while it was articulated almost three decades ago, but is enduring, contemporary, and most importantly, is empirically validated, permitting us to build on existing measures and applications to professions education. In our study with exemplars and alumni, we began with moral identity. Building on the work of Robert Kegan, we view identity as a balance of tensions between the need to expand our awareness of others, including the profession and society, and the need to retain the core elements of our identity, in a type of yin / yang dynamic. Part 2 of this series will preview our approach.

What is the meaning of professionalism to you, personally? I’d like to hear from you either by commenting below, or sending me an email, at mons0076@stthomas.edu.

Posted in Summaries of Research or Scholarship | 1 Comment »