The Ethics of a Profession

I just finished reading the book "No One Would Listen" which was interesting for a lot of reasons.  The man who tried to bring down Madoff had a lot of things to get off his chest and while I do not agree with all of his beliefs, one thing is true, ethics more often are a justification for doing something that is self motivated, as opposed to a concept that is supposed to be prioritized over anything.  The basic concept from the Madoff scandal was that beyond just the SEC, a great deal of people in the financial industry knew that Madoff was doing something wrong but decided to ignore it.  Even some of the so called victims that were told of the fraud, decided to ignore it because they didn't want to escape the fantasy and the greed that came with the mythical returns.  In my rather smaller example is the concept of dealing with clients when you are at a midsize firm.  I realized something when I first started, there is a concept that is so logical when it comes to ethics, that you think its standard -- counsel the client for his best interest and not what produces the greatest amount of fees.  People wonder why lawyers get a bad stereotype and its simply because we are financially motivated and sometimes we take advantage of the clients zeal in order to get the better economic result for ourselves.  The people who ignored Madoff did so because there was so self serving factor for themselves in speaking up.  They preferred the bliss of ignorance.  Similarly, clients come to lawyers looking for solutions that sometimes aren't there.  We are problem solvers but sometimes the solution isn't what they want to hear.  Just like Madoff's victims, there were a lot of signs of the fraud but they just ignored it because they were enjoying the money.  And those on Wall Street who were aware, didn't believe they had an ethical duty to report what was happening.  I don't know, as I progress in my career, I think I may need to get out of it because its obvious that I do have an ethical backbone and perhaps it won't work as a lawyer for a midsize firm.