Noted ethicist to join Law School

In a move that many say will make the Law School's program on professional responsibility the foremost in the country, a well-known Yale professor has accepted a teaching position at the University. Geoffrey Hazard, a specialist in legal ethics, will become the University's first Trustee Professor of Law this summer. "I think there's no question that Hazard is a nationally respected scholar and an expert in the field of lawyers' ethics," Law School Professor Douglas Frenkel said. Hazard, who is executive director of the American Law Institute at 40th and Chestnut streets, has taught at Yale since 1971, but moved to Philadelphia last year because of the Institute. "I've been commuting from here to [Yale] and decided that I would stop commuting," he said this week. But Hazard said his move to Penn involves more than location. "Yale has this reputation for being highly?theoretical, [and] my impression is that Penn is more practical oriented," he said. He added that he believes teaching ethics from a theoretical standpoint can only achieve limited results. Hazard will work with professors at the Law School's Center on Professionalism. Judge Edmund Spaeth, a senior consultant to the center, said the center already has a national standing. "He'll contribute to our work, and the reputation will follow," said Law School Professor Howard Lesnick. Hazard has served as executive director of the American Bar Foundation, a legislative drafter in Oregon and Pennsylvania and has written a number of books. He said ethics can be difficult ground for practicing lawyers. "It's a very serious practical problem," Hazard said. "Fifty years ago, we all thought we knew which way was up [and] the path of rightness and virtue." But, he added, the law today is a great deal more complicated. "The lawyer often finds himself in the middle, wondering why the law requires him to do something," he said. Hazard graduated from Swarthmore College before attending law school at Columbia University. He will begin working at the University at the beginning of the summer.