NCJ Number
127474
Date Published
1988
Length
469 pages
Annotation
This analysis of legal ethics focuses on the conflict between common morality and the lawyer's "role morality" under the adversary system and on how this conflict becomes a social and political problem for a community.
Abstract
The discussion uses actual examples and case law to develop a systematic philosophical analysis to the problem of role morality in legal practice. This concept explains how people in certain social roles may be morally required to do things that seem immoral. In the case of lawyers, the adversary system requires each party to advocate its own case and to attack the case of the other party, thereby excusing lawyers from common moral obligations to nonclients. The text then applies this analysis to the problem of confidentiality, outlines an affordable system of legal services for low-income people, and discusses ethical problems involved in public-interest law. Footnotes, table of cases, index, appended additional analyses, and 338 references