Q11

[savvysinger]

Hi there,

In going over the text and answers for the second passage, question 11, I still can't find any examples of which documented ethical violations against a canon lawyer would be most likely to exist. Could you please point me to where that is mentioned?

Thanks!

[bbirdwell]

Line 17. "In the few recorded episodes...the initiative came from a dissatisfied client, not a fellow lawyer."

[bswise2]

I'm confused by this question.

We know that it will likely be the client to pursue disciplinary action. (A) states that the lawyer is betraying the client's secrets to the opposing party. This does not require direct client interaction or even knowledge that it occurred (especially if the opposing party's attorney is involved--in which case it will probably be swept under the table, as the passage suggests). In order to chose (A), wouldn't you have to assume that the client found out? How can we make that assumption when (E) provides a scenario in which the client is directly being guided into lying. With (E), we know the client is aware that lawyer is violating ethics.

Thanks in advance.

[Fleetwood_J_Thomas]

While I am still puzzled by this question, and in fact got it wrong (to which I chose 'C'), the question asks: "which on the of the following ethical violations would documentation of disciplinary action...likely to have existed". The only area in the passage that tells us that documentation was in fact done is in lines 17-20, which only tells us that the client is the reason for the discipline being recorded. In these lines it only tells us that the reason the client complains is because he or she was not satisfied.

Please forgive my simple explanation, but after reviewing this, this is all I can think of, perhaps someone can better explain:

B) If the lawyer bribes the judge for the client, and assuming the judge takes the bribe, the client wins, why then would a client complain. Therefore, no recording of discipline.
C) (which I got wrong because I was trying to beat the clock and got 'gassed' at this point) has nothing to do with the client. Client cannot complain about what he or she does not know.
D) Once more, nothing to do with the client.
E) Assuming that by helping the client LIE and the client wins, why then would a client complain.

We are left only with A) which establishes a fault of some sort between the client and lawyer. In this case the lawyer betrays the client to the opposing party...That would make me upset and file a complaint on the lawyer.

Make sense?

[bswise2]

After revisiting this passage, I think I have a good understanding on why A is the correct answer. It seems the only information provided in the passage that pertains to documentation of ethical violations against canon lawyers is in line 17-20: "In the few recorded episodes of disciplinary enforcement, the initiative for disciplinary action apparently came from a dissatisfied client, not from fellow lawyers." The key word in this is dissatisfied client. That is the necessary condition presented here.

So which one of the answer choices would give us a dissatisfied client?

A- This is the only answer choice that gives us a dissatisfied client.
B- This would be more likely to give us a satisfied client.
C- The client has no relevance in this situation.
D- This would be more likely to help our client's case and therefore, satisfy the client.
E- Again, this would be more likely to help our client's case.

[CaitlinC257]

The explanations above are valid. I agree that, after looking through the text, A was the only answer upon which the text even hinted at possibly being a problem. However, what frustrates me is that we are taught by Manhattan LSAT that inference questions should not rely upon the creation of information NOT itself inferred in the text, meaning something that we can not reasonably assess from the text alone. This question brings in extra information. You could assume its possibility based upon the text, but you CANNOT infer it based upon the text. Furthermore, the way the question is worded is that of an identification question rather than an inference question, but I suppose it could still be seen as an inference question. The motive behind my writing this is that I think that they way we learn to group questions and answers and learn the tricks of question types is not really that useful in the end. There have been several times I have thwarted my own instincts in attempts to apply the reasoning of the Manhattan LSAT course and found that if I had not listened to the advice, I would have gotten the right answer. It is not that the advice does not sometimes help, it is that it is not helping me in more challenging questions that would lead to a 170+ score. For this reason, I really think the course needs to be designed more holistically, more in relation to what skills of reading and understanding arguments one really needs to acquire in order to master the test.

[ohthatpatrick]

I'm not sure where you're getting your absolutist definition of what Inference questions are doing. There are moments in books and moments in class where we teachers are stressing, "No we can't infer that. We don't know anything about THAT."

But INFERENCE tasks will always mean, using only the provided facts (as well as common sense, if needed), what is the most provable / most supported answer.

When they ask us an INFERENCE question by saying
"which of these answers must be true", then usually there is total provability.

But when they ask us an INFERENCE question by saying
"which of these answers is most supported"
or in the case of Q11
"which of these answers is most likely"
then you fully expect that the correct answer is not something bulletproof that we can completely derive --- it's just the most supportable answer available.

I agree with you that the often-artificial dividing line between Identification, Inference, and Synthesis is not of much use to me. I don't personally teach it in my classes or use in my own thinking.

I have a general tendency expectation:

If it says
ACCORDING TO THE PASSAGE
THE PASSAGE STATES / INDICATES
then the answer will probably be pretty close to a fact-finding mission, although the correct answer is often still a paraphrase away.

If it says
INFERRED / IMPLIES / SUGGESTS / MOST LIKELY AGREE TO
then the answer will probably be a little gist-ier, or it might require combining more than one detail from the passage, or it might just regurgitate a fact we were told but write that regurgitation in obnoxious paraphrased language.

But those certainly aren't absolutes. We're always looking for the most supported answer that best answers the question.

Your Holistic Approach to Q11:

1. Read question stem and see, "It's ACCORDING TO PASSAGE, so this is potentially one of the easier, more direct Q's in this set. It's giving me some keywords, so I should go find those in the passage and lock in on my SUPPORT WINDOW".

2. Search for where the passage discusses "the existence of documentation of disciplinary actions against a canon lawyer". We find it lines 17-20. It looks like the previous sentence and following sentence are not extending this thought, so our SUPPORT WINDOW is really just 17-20.

3. Prephrase what you think could be a correct answer or reiterate what detail the correct answer would have to reinforce:
- our prephrase here, based on 17-20, should be "needs to deal with a dissatisfied client".

4. Read the answer choices with your prephrase in mind and try to winnow it down to 2 or only 1 answer, looking back at the text whenever needed.

(A) "betraying client" seems common sense related to "dissatisfied client". Keep it.

(B) "in favor of client" goes opposite direction

(C) has nothing to do with client

(D) has nothing to do with client

(E) "helping a client" goes opposite direction



The most important parts of my process (and a student's process) for getting this question correct are:
- mining the question stem for keywords,

- finding those keywords in the passage,

- trying to answer the question using the passage's words (or our own words) or otherwise narrowing down the available Support Window

- trusting / reiterating the Support Window like a mantra as I look at answer choices.

Hope this helps.