When I was in law school, I felt patronized by the amount of time we spent talking about conflicts of interest because it seemed so obvious to me. In retrospect, having read so many of the disbarment announcements in the bar association newsletter, it's clear that a great many people do not understand what a conflict of interest is.
I feel patronised by yearly mandatory training. All of it seems obvious and not relevant to me because I’ve never negotiated a contract on behalf of my employer. Still, good to know there’s plenty of people who might find training useful.
Perhaps I'm naive, but I think the number of people who know and don't care is a small fraction of the people who honestly don't understand that they're doing something wrong. I mean, obviously this guy knew he was doing something wrong, but a lot of people just can't imagine that their own unethical behavior wouldn't be obvious to them.
Haha I do taxes for a living, and the number of times people have said, "My buddy does this and he says it's fine." As if the fact that the person hasn't been caught is evidence that what they're doing is legal. It's what you mentioned, they feel clever and don't think they're doing anything illegal.
