Not at all. Codes of ethics are very helpful in preventing unethical behavior because they summarize a large amount of careful thought about ethics. That's one of the reasons so much of religious thought and literature, theistic and non-, is about the finer details of good behavior.

Being a decent person is a good start, but that's just not enough. It's a complicated world, and the obvious thing isn't always the right thing. Especially when people are embedded in an economic system that strongly rewards behavior that could easily be ethically dubious.

And unethical people tend to follow ethical guidelines?

Ethical guidelines can be useful for times when the person wants to do the right thing and the area is gray (e.g. should I represent a client I believe is guilty), but people who are content with unethical behavior will not be swayed by a code they promised to follow. An imperative to honor a promise implies intrinsic ethics.

Most of the actions that would actually get you disbarred are pretty flagrant.

> And unethical people tend to follow ethical guidelines?

This is a false dichotomy. Some people are deeply unethical. Some people are deeply ethical. Most people are just getting along in their lives and can be pushed in either direction by the practical and social context. Codes of ethics are helpful for everybody except the ardently unethical.

It's not a false dichotomy. You started by saying that ethical codes were responsible for stopping most/much of the bad things lawyers could do. I'm saying that's patently untrue. Most of the bad things lawyers could do don't happen because most lawyers are decent people.

Codes of ethics are helpful precisely when things are not clearly "bad", but in the gray areas.

> You started by saying that ethical codes were responsible for stopping most/much of the bad things lawyers could do.

Would you care to tell me where I said that? Because I don't see that at all.

Reviewing the bidding, gregwtmtno, a lawyer, said maybe we could use a professional code of ethics like his profession had. SomeStupidPoint suggested that ethics didn't matter to lawyers, and his proof was naming some things lawyers did that he thought were bad.

My point was that one can't say that legal professional ethics is totally worthless just because of when they've failed (or at least failed to prevent things you dislike). You have to look at its successes as well as its failures.

> Would you care to tell me where I said that? Because I don't see that at all.

That's how I read this: But what you're ignoring is the great number of bad things that lawyers don't do because either a) they are afraid of the professional consequences, b) they can get their clients to easily back off because they say, "professional ethics!" and people know it's a real thing, or c) they get disbarred and can't act as a lawyer any more.

> My point was that one can't say that legal professional ethics is totally worthless just because of when they've failed (or at least failed to prevent things you dislike). You have to look at its successes as well as its failures.

That's fair enough. I don't think codes of ethics are worthless either.