Inside Lawyers Ethics

Inside Lawyers' Ethics is a lively and practical values-based analysis of the moral dilemmas that lawyers face. It gives lawyers the confidence to understand and actively improve their ethical priorities and behaviour when confronted with major ethical challenges. It identifies the applicable law and conduct rules and analyses them in the context of four different types of ethical lawyering: zealous advocacy, responsible lawyering, moral activism and the ethics of care. This new edition is fully updated, with a new chapter on confidentiality and new case studies and review questions. This edition also contains a self-assessment instrument designed to allow readers to recognise the type of lawyering that most appeals to them. Inside Lawyers' Ethics promotes self-awareness and offers a positive and enriching approach to problem solving, rather than one based on the 'don't get caught' principle. It is essential reading for students of law and newly qualified legal practitioners.

Inside Lawyers' Ethics offers a practical examination of the moral and ethical dilemmas that legal professionals may encounter in the professional environment. The text provides comprehensive coverage and analysis of general philosophical approaches to morality as well as the legal frameworks which govern ethical decision-making and practice.

This book provides an empirically grounded, in-depth investigation of the ethical dimensions to in-house practice and how legal risk is defined and managed by in-house lawyers and others. The growing significance and status of the role of General Counsel has been accompanied by growth in legal risk as a phenomenon of importance. In-house lawyers are regularly exhorted to be more commercial, proactive and strategic, to be business leaders and not (mere) lawyers, but they are increasingly exposed for their roles in organisational scandals. This book poses the question: how far does going beyond being a lawyer conflict with or entail being more ethical? It explores the role of in-housers by calling on three key pieces of empirical research: two tranches of interviews with senior in-house lawyers and senior compliance staff; and an unparalleled large survey of in-house lawyers. On the basis of this evidence, the authors explore how ideas about in-house roles shape professional logics; how far professional notions such as independence play a role in those logics; and the ways in which ethical infrastructure are managed or are absent from in-house practice. It concludes with a discussion of whether and how in-house lawyers and their regulators need to take professionalism and professional ethicality more seriously.

Legal ethics is often described as an oxymoron or contradiction in terms - lay people find the concept amusing and lawyers can find ethics impossible. The best lawyers are those who have come to grips with their own values and actively seek to improve their ethical practise. This book is designed to help law students and new lawyers understand and modify their own ethical priorities, not just because this knowledge makes it easier to practise law and earn an income, but because self-aware, ethical legal practice is right and feels better than anything else. Packed with case studies of ethical scandals and dilemmas from real life legal practice in Australia, each chapter delves into the most difficult issues lawyers face. From lawyers' part in corporate fraud to the ethics of time-based billing, Parker and Evans expose the values that underlie current practice and set out the alternatives ethical lawyers might follow.

Inside Lawyers' Ethics is a lively and practical values-based analysis of the moral dilemmas that lawyers face. It identifies the applicable law and conduct rules and analyses them in the context of four different types of ethical lawyering: zealous advocacy, responsible lawyering, moral activism and the ethics of care.

How do lawyers resolve ethical dilemmas in the everyday context of their practice? What are the issues that commonly arise, and how do lawyers determine the best ways to resolve them? Until recently, efforts to answer these questions have focused primarily on rules and legal doctrine rather than the real-life situations lawyers face in legal practice. The first book to present empirical research on ethical decision making in a variety of practice contexts, including corporate litigation, securities, immigration, and divorce law, Lawyers in Practice fills a substantial gap in the existing literature. Following an introduction emphasizing the increasing importance of understanding context in the legal profession, contributions focus on ethical dilemmas ranging from relatively narrow ethical issues to broader problems of professionalism, including the prosecutor’s obligation to disclose evidence, the management of conflicts of interest, and loyalty to clients and the court. Each chapter details the resolution of a dilemma from the practitioner’s point of view that is, in turn, set within a particular community of practice. Timely and practical, this book should be required reading for law students as well as students and scholars of law and society.