The question of why good people do unethical things is always ripe for consideration. Often, and perhaps even usually, the answer is that nobody was think about ethics at all, or thinking at all. The tale about how a cheerful piece of artwork depicting a lynching ended up on the walls of a large law firm’s office is a cautionary tale, and in his Comment of the Day on the post, “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring,” Big Law Firm Edition,” johnburger2013 neatly explains how such gaffes occur. The one feature that John left out was the subsequent publicity, including on ethics websites.

The lesson: Be careful out there….

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I suspect the art was selected to coincide with Black History Month and the powers who made the decision (“First Decider”) simply said, “Hey, we have a ton of art from renowned African American Artists. We should display that during February.” To which someone else (“Second Decider”) said, “Awesome. Let’s get the staff to put the paintings on the wall.” Then, First Decider said, “Cool, I’ll email my people and get them on it.” Second Decider: “Great. What’s for lunch?”

Then, First Decider emailed maintenance: “Good morning. We are honoring Black History Month in February. We have a number of really interesting paintings in our storage room. Would you be awesome and hang them on the walls?” Maintenance Engineer responded, “Sure. We will get it done this evening.” Maintenance Engineer told the staff who merely displayed the art on the walls without really thinking about it.

Then, somebody walked by and looked at that particular painting and blood ran cold in the veins, with an audible, “Oh, crap! That’s gonna hurt!” The problem took on a life of its own after that. Rather than simply state, “Really? You are pissed/hurt by a painting depicting something terrible? Have you seen ‘Schindler’s List’? How about stuff painted by Frida Kahlo? Or Picasso? And you call yourself lawyers? What kind of intestinal fortitude do you lack that you can’t look at a painting – which, frankly, I find juvenile and simplistic in quality and style – and realize, ‘yeah, we had some really awful times in our history. Hopefully we have moved beyond that.’” But, no, they have a Chief DIE officer whose job it is to make mountains out of anthills and recommend sensitivity training for all involved.

If I were a client, I’d pull my cases from that firm. Immediately.