The Ethical Lawyer: Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility is a guide to ethical conduct and client care which traces the developments in the field of legal ethics and professional responsibility that have occurred in New Zealand over the past 20 years and examines what it means to be an ethical lawyer in New Zealand today.The book also provides a highly readable resource for learning the rules governing professional conduct. Its primary purpose is to (a) focus on the key ethical issues that lawyers encounter on a day-to-day basis in their practices, and (b) give lawyers an easy-to-follo.
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
This problem-based book reflects the authors’ broad range of teaching, clinical, and policy-making experience. The book’s carefully crafted ethical problems challenge students to engage in a deep analysis and participate in lively class discussion. Features include: Real-world problems, most based on actual cases, in which students are asked to step into the shoes of practicing lawyers to confront difficult ethical dilemmas that often arise in practice. The law governing lawyers explained in an accessible question-and-answer format. A succinct explanation of relevant Model Rules and other law governing lawyers, including examples from disciplinary and malpractice cases. An opportunity for students, through specific examples, to reflect on their own conception of their professional roles on behalf of clients and their obligations to the legal system as a whole. Lively presentation of materials, including cartoons, tables, and photos. Clear and concise presentation through text and charts that summarize relevant law. Unsolicited comments from adopters of Ethical Problems in the Practice of Law: Professor Cynthia Batt, Stetson University College of Law, wrote that this book “has the BEST teacher’s manual of any text ever.” Professor Jamie P. Werbel, Seton Hall University School of Law wrote: I wanted to drop you a line and let you know how fabulous your textbook is! I just started teaching Professional Responsibility this year, and your book has been invaluable to me as I guide my students through the course. My husband, also an attorney, made fun of me last semester as a few times I was reading it at night in bed! It really is just that enjoyable to read. New to the 6th Edition: A comprehensive revision of the entire text, adding material to continue to provide students with a wealth of opportunities to grapple with ethical issues. Inclusion of recent developments in the field, including: Discussion of the amendments to Model Rule 1.8 regarding gifts to clients: The new ABA ethics opinion on what constitutes material adversity under Rule 1.9; Developments in some states on permitting non-lawyers to provide some legal services; Changes in some states’ rules on non-lawyer ownership of firms; Expanded coverage of ethical issues arising from use of the Internet and social media, such as an ABA opinion on how lawyers may respond to online critiques of their services. Material on recent events that have raised important issues of professional responsibility, especially discipline and sanctions for lawyers who made unfounded claims about the 2020 presidential election. Updated empirical information about the practice of law, including the continuing concerns about diversity within the profession. Benefits for Students: Problem-based approach, often based on real-life cases, offers students a practical way to test their understanding Graphics (cartoons, tables, photos) throughout, which make the presentation lively and engaging Shocking examples of recent lawyer misconduct maintain student interest A readable and enjoyable law school textbook
Ethical Problems in the Practice of Law, Concise Fourth Edition is the briefer version of Lerman and Schrag’s highly successful problem-based textbook that offers a contemporary and thoughtful approach to challenging ethical dilemmas, encouraging deep analysis and lively class discussion. Key Features: Succinct and accessible explanation of lawyer law in question and answer format Numerous problems based on actual cases, in which students must analyze the ethical and strategic issues as if they were practicing lawyers Focus on issues that students are most likely to face in their early years of practice Stimulating presentation of materials, including cartoons, tables, and photos New to the Fourth Edition: Updates of countless recent developments in lawyer law, including the amendments to Rules 1.6, 1.18 and 8.4 Up-to-date discussions of how the Internet is affecting law practice, including the use of e-mail and social media Engaging two-color design New chapter on the changing legal profession Reorganized so that the chapters match the practice MPRE questions in Lerman, Schrag, and Gupta’s Ethical Problems in the Practice of Law: Model Rules, State Variations and Practice Questions.
It has been over thirty years since the founding crises that birthed legal ethics as both a field of study and a discrete field of law. In that time thinking about the ethical dimension of legal practice has taken several turns: from justifications of zealous advocacy, to questions of process and connections to specifically legal values, to more recently consideration of legal conduct as part of a wider field of virtue. Parallel to this dynamism of thought, there has also been significant changes in how legal professions, especially within those that possess a common law heritage, have been regulated and the values and conceptions of legitimate conduct that has informed this regulation. This volume represents an opportunity for a comprehensive review of legal ethics as an international movement. Contributors include many of the key participants to the legal ethics field from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, including David Luban and Deborah Rhode, as well as many of the recognised emerging thinkers. The theme of the book is taking stock of the last thirty years of legal ethics practice and scholarship and also a forum for new ideas and new thinking regarding the conduct of lawyers and the moral and social responsibility of the legal profession. The contributions also consider the topic of dynamism. Over the last decade significant developments in both the expectations of professional conduct and the regulation of the profession has been experienced in all jurisdictions, which has seen traditional, and once sacred, conceptions of lawyering challenged and re-evaluated. The contributors also look at the theme of affirmation. Within an increasingly complex environment of change and dynamism, this volume reaffirms that there is value within the field of legal ethics. That is the project of reflecting on the unique ethical and conduct requirements of lawyering can not be submerged into a broader field of applied philosophy, management or regulatory studies. While this volume does not deny the opportunities that exist for interdisciplinary engagement with philosophy, social science or politics, it affirms legal ethics as a legitimate and highly relevant field of inquiry.
"With guidelines on topics from ethics to office management, changes in payment technologies, managing client expectations, and gaining competence in new practice areas, this book will prepare you for lawyering in today's world and in tomorrow's"--
The contributions in this volume suggest that "the ethics project in legal education" is increasingly an international one. Even though the strength of commitment by both the profession and the legal academy to "ethics learning" within law schools varies, two fundamental questions confront all who work in this area. First, what is it that we want our students to learn (or, perhaps, in what manner do we want our students to develop) from the teaching of "legal ethics"? Second, how can we create a learning environment that will encourage the nature and quality of learning we think is important? All the contributors to this volume take a strong stand on the importance of ethical legal practice and the role of law schools in developing students’ capacities in this area. They share a belief in the essential need to encourage law students to engage with the moral dimensions of legal practice. The questions that these scholars grapple with are therefore not of the "should we be teaching this?" variety, but "how might we best to go about doing this, so that our efforts within law schools really make some difference?" Each of the chapters in this volume adds uniquely to our understanding of these matters.
Among members of the legal profession and judiciary throughout the world, there is a genuine concern with establishing and maintaining high ethical standards. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. Nor is it difficult to see the professional standards are not completelydivorced from ordinary morality. Indeed, legal ethics and professional responsibility are more than a set of rules of good conduct; they are also a commitment to honesty, integrity, and service in the practice of law. In order to ensure that the standards established are the right ones, it isnecessary first of all to examine important philosophical and policy issues, such as the need to reconsider the boundaries between, on the one hand, a lawyer's obligation to a client and, on the other, the public interest. It is also to be appreciated that conflicts of interest are pervasive andthat all too often they are so common that they are not recognized as such. Yet rarely is public policy clearly cut. The underlying themes of this book are: * that the move to more definite rules is not only inevitable but also desirable * that existing codes of professional practice cannot simply be treated as a system of specific rules * that the current set of ethical rules is contestable and requires further refinement, perhaps even radical surgery * and that legal ethics must be conceived in the more general area of professional responsibility The wider ethical issues of the operation of the legal profession as a whole are now firmly on the agenda. Both law schools and law professionals have a role to play in developing acceptable standards in this area and it is therefore appropriate that the essays in this volume are written by adistinguished group of law teachers and practitioners together with senior members of the judiciary. The book opens with an overview chapter, followed by three chapters analysing the ethical rules pertaining to the judiciary, the Bar, and solicitors, written by, respectively, the Master of the Rolls, Anthony Thornton, and Alison Crawley and Christopher Bramall. The following three chapters lookat the specific issues of confidentiality (Michael Brindle and Guy Dehn) and the particular ethical problems in the family and criminal law jurisdictions (Sir Alan Ward and Professor Andrew Ashworth respectively). Chapter 8, by Sir Alan Paterson, discusses the teaching of legal ethics, whilstChapters 9 and 10, by Marc Galanter, Thomas Palay, and Cyril Glasser put the subject in its wider social and professional context. The book finishes with a chapter which examines what lawyers may learn from looking at the study of medical ethics.
