This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

This paper tests Harry Arthur's theory that there is an “ethical economy“ of lawyer regulation in Canada, in which Canadian law societies use their regulatory powers only in high reward/low risk cases - ie, where the practitioner is less likely to resist their authority and the offence is morally unambiguous. Analysing reported cases from 2009 in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia the paper concludes that Arthurs' description still accurately characterises the regulation of lawyers by Canadian law societies. (...) The paper then conducts a case study of law society and court cases related to one Canadian lawyer, Anthony Merchant, to assess whether the ethical economy is inevitable, or whether a different approach to lawyer regulation can and should be undertaken. (shrink)

Bradley Wendel, Lawyers and Fidelity to Law, xii + 286 pp. Normative accounts of the lawyer's role search for a singular justification for that role. I...

Alice Woolley reviews Crime and Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach.

Legal ethics theory focuses on the moral problem of lawyers pursuing morally suspect (but lawful) ends and using morally suspect (but lawful) means. It considers possible justifications for lawyers' conduct arising from moral or political philosophy, and how those justifications may require shifts in the lawyer's role. This paper argues that legal ethics theory needs to expand its focus to consider other ethical aspects of the lawyer's role and, in particular, the extent to which being a lawyer can complicate, or (...) contribute to, the accomplishment of a meaningful life. Meaning—defined by Susan Wolf as 'loving something (or a number of things) worth of love, and being able to engage with it (or them) in a positive way'—will be affected in positive and negative ways by the moral dimensions of the lawyer's role, but also by broader aspects of legal practice. The paper further argues that legal ethics theory needs to be more sensitive to contextual variations in legal practice. The ethical challenges and opportunities of legal practice, both its meaning and its morality, are contextually specific in ways legal ethics theory has not sufficiently accounted for. The paper discusses how meaning and context can be included in analysis of the ethics of a lawyer's life. (shrink)

Volume 21, Issue 2, December 2018, Page 159-162.

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.