Compliance officers can find good guidance in all sorts of places, but let’s not forget that supreme compendium of legal wisdom: old episodes of Law & Order.
The nugget of advice springing to my mind today came from an episode in 1999, “Gunshow,” where Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy takes a gun manufacturer to court because its assault rifle was used in a mass shooting. McCoy wins a guilty verdict from the jury, but the judge immediately sets aside the verdict and acquits the company. Then he lectures McCoy with this zinger: “There is a difference between being right, and doing right.”
