This article reads Cherokee academic/author Thomas King’s “The One About Coyote Going West” and Okanagan writer Jeannette Armstrong’s “This is a Story” to question whether these Aboriginal creation tales subvert the referential race codes and the kinds of hierarchical exclusion that take place in Caucasian discourses about Homo sapiens. To do so, it draws links between Slavoj Zizek’s post identity theories, and post-colonial and Indigenous literary and nationalist epistemologies, to challenge the implications of how the Coyote narratives transformation the hegemony, (...) or “the big Other.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

"Golf day 2005 @ federal golf club, red hill." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 7.

Even lawyers who obey the law often seem to act unethically--interfering with the discovery of truth, subverting justice, and inflicting harm on innocent people. Standard arguments within legal ethics attempt to show why it is permissible to do something as a lawyer that it would be wrong to do as an ordinary person. But in the view of most critics these arguments fail to turn wrongs into rights. Even many lawyers think legal ethics is flawed because it does not (...) accurately describe the considerable moral value of their work. In Lawyers and Fidelity to Law, Bradley Wendel introduces a new conception of legal ethics that addresses the concerns of lawyers and their critics alike.Wendel proposes an ethics grounded on the political value of law as a collective achievement that settles intractable conflicts, allowing people who disagree profoundly to live together in a peaceful, stable society. Lawyers must be loyal and competent client representatives, Wendel argues, but these obligations must always be exercised within the law that constitutes their own roles and confers rights and duties upon their clients. Lawyers act unethically when they treat the law as an inconvenient obstacle to be worked around and when they twist and distort it to help their clients do what they are not legally entitled to do. Lawyers and Fidelity to Law challenges lawyers and their critics to reconsider the nature and value of ethical representation. (shrink)

Even lawyers who obey the law often seem to act unethically--interfering with the discovery of truth, subverting justice, and inflicting harm on innocent people. Standard arguments within legal ethics attempt to show why it is permissible to do something as a lawyer that it would be wrong to do as an ordinary person. But in the view of most critics these arguments fail to turn wrongs into rights. Even many lawyers think legal ethics is flawed because it does not (...) accurately describe the considerable moral value of their work. In Lawyers and Fidelity to Law, Bradley Wendel introduces a new conception of legal ethics that addresses the concerns of lawyers and their critics alike.Wendel proposes an ethics grounded on the political value of law as a collective achievement that settles intractable conflicts, allowing people who disagree profoundly to live together in a peaceful, stable society. Lawyers must be loyal and competent client representatives, Wendel argues, but these obligations must always be exercised within the law that constitutes their own roles and confers rights and duties upon their clients. Lawyers act unethically when they treat the law as an inconvenient obstacle to be worked around and when they twist and distort it to help their clients do what they are not legally entitled to do. Lawyers and Fidelity to Law challenges lawyers and their critics to reconsider the nature and value of ethical representation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe ways that lawyers approach mediation vary considerably and there is value in contemplating potential explanations for the adoption of particular participatory roles. This article considers how ethical orientation to legal practice might correlate with the nature of lawyers' participation in mediation, using three of Rundle's models of lawyer participation in mediation. Role choices by lawyers who approach legal practice through the professional ethical lenses described by Parker and Evans are hypothesised, uncovering a range of potential explanations for and (...) motivations behind lawyers' behaviour in mediation. The discussion provides an opportunity for critical self-reflection by legal practitioners and better interprofessional understanding between lawyers and mediators. (shrink)

This is a book about the ethics of the legal profession proceeding from one basic premise: our nation is so dependent on its lawyers that their ethical problems transform themselves into public difficulties.

Even good lawyers get a bad rap. One explanation for this is that the professional rules governing lawyers permit and even require behavior that strikes many as immoral. The standard accounts of legal ethics that seek to defend these professional rules do little to dispel this air of immorality. The revisionary accounts of legal ethics that criticize the professional rules inject a hearty dose of morality, but at the cost of leaving lawyers unrecognizable as lawyers. This article suggests that the (...) problem with both the professional rules and the extant accounts of legal ethics is that they treat the role of lawyer as largely uniform, whereas lawyers actually serve several importantly different roles in different contexts. The central insight of the article is that legal ethics must be fundamentally context-sensitive: what lawyers are morally permitted or required to do depends on the background context in which they are working. Additionally, by taking context into account, this article is the first to present a theory of legal ethics as appropriately shaped and constrained by normative political philosophy and norms of political legitimacy. -/- Specifically, the article argues that people act as lawyers in three different contexts: State v. Individual (situations in which the State seeks to apply some general law to a particular individual), Individual v. Individual (situations in which private individuals are engaged in a dispute), and Individual v. State (situations in which individuals object to State conduct on constitutional or other grounds unrelated to the question of whether a general law applies to their particular case); that the value of lawyers, qua lawyers, stems from a different source in each of these contexts; and that a theory of legal ethics must take into account both of these first two claims. This article develops one such theory - the Multi-Context View. To demonstrate how the theory applies in practice, the article applies the Multi-Context View to two significant issues in legal ethics: the ethical issues involved in deciding whether to represent a client and the moral permissibility of the use of tactical delay. (shrink)

The law, Holmes said, is no brooding omnipresence in the sky. "If that is true," writes David Luban, "it is because we encounter the legal system in the form of flesh-and-blood human beings: the police if we are unlucky, but for the (marginally) luckier majority, the lawyers." For practical purposes, the lawyers are the law. In this comprehensive study of legal ethics, Luban examines the conflict between common morality and the lawyer's "role morality" under the adversary system and how (...) this conflict becomes a social and political problem for a community. Using real examples and drawing extensively on case law, he develops a systematic philosophical treatment of the problem of role morality in legal practice. He then applies the argument to the problem of confidentiality, outlines an affordable system of legal services for the poor, and provides an in-depth philosophical treatment of ethical problems in public interest law. (shrink)

Lawyering for the Rule of Law introduces a new model of government lawyering in which government lawyers function as an ancillary mechanism that enables the court to expand its influence on policy-making within the political branches by forming out-of-court settlements. It discusses the centrality of government lawyers with regard to judicial mobilization and the enforcement of social reforms through adjudication, and sheds light on particular functions of government lawyers as adjudicators and facilitators of institutional arrangements. It also discusses the ethical (...) and professional dilemmas of government lawyers in judicial review and the relationship between lawyers' professional morality and outcomes in litigation. (shrink)

Lawyers’ practice in mediation is changing with the widespread use of processes other than litigation, and in this context, referred to as the alternative dispute resolution (‘ADR’) options in cour...

Collectively, lawyers probably seek in vain to be sufficiently trusted, even when most individual lawyers appear to do their utmost to behave responsibly. Efforts to address lawyers' behavioural failures remain an important social policy objective and a professional obligation. In this article we argue that it is politically sensible and socially responsible for the legal profession to continue to address its misbehaving members in a more fundamental manner than just the post-facto disciplinary process. We suggest that pre-emptive (pre-offence), ethics self-assessments (...) may limit the later incidence of misbehaviour and assist in rehabilitation programs for disciplined lawyers. We report on an experimental approach to lawyers' discovering more about their innate ethics. We have trialled lawyers' responses to a series of concrete statements about their ethical priorities and developed a statistically valid 'scale' (or set of statements) to allow lawyers in an Australian context to observe and reflect upon, their differing ethical approaches. To date, no such a scale has been developed for lawyers' ethics. The results of this scale development process are sufficiently encouraging to justify further work on similar scales for different cultures and legal traditions, in the interest of producing a tailored, reliable and valid instrument for general pre-emptive use within each local profession. The proposition that awareness improves conscious decision-making is not revolutionary or particularly contentious. While raising lawyers' awareness of how they make choices may only make a modest contribution to enhancing the ethical quality of their professional behaviour, it nevertheless seems plausible that it will raise their awareness and is therefore a worthwhile exercise. (shrink)

After more than 40 years of development, China has established a relatively complete system of lawyers, including laws and regulations, a unified qualification examination, and lawyers associations. Today, there are nearly 600,000 lawyers working in various fields. However, the Communist regime in China has never adopted the so-called Western values of freedom and equality, the guarantee of human rights, and the rule of law, while the socialist ideology emphasizes the obedience of the individual to the collective and to the power (...) of the State, and thus the Communist Party has always emphasized management and control in its attitude toward lawyers. At the same time, because of its consistency with socialist ideology in many aspects, various concepts of traditional Chinese law have been preserved, which allowed a prejudice against lawyers based on traditional Chinese legal culture to persist to this day, to the extent that many Chinese people lack trust in lawyers. Chinese lawyers have no choice but to tactfully try to come to terms with the Communist Party and overcome traditional attitudes and unfavorable publicity against lawyers. (shrink)

Many criminal lawyers should expect that, were they to not defend a certain client, someone no less capable would do so. It is morally wrong for such attorneys to defend defendants who should be punished. This is true even if we grant that the defendant’s right to be defended outweighs any rights that might be infringed by the defense and that the benefits of defending are greater than the harm. Nor does this argument depend on any particular view of punishment. (...) The fact that the attorney expects to be replaced by someone equally capable has an asymmetric effect on the reasons for and against defending. The reasons that justify defending become extremely attenuated by this expectation, no matter what they are, while the reasons against defending are much less affected, no matter what they are. (shrink)

(1984). Lawyer‐client confidences under the A.B.A. model rules: Ethical rules without ethical reason. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 3-8.

Valmaer. [pseud]. [Ream, Michael]. Lawyer's Code of Ethics. A Satire. St. Louis: The F.H. Thomas Law Book Co., 1887. 143 pp. Reprinted 2001 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 00-021508. ISBN 1-58477-047-3. Cloth. $65. * Witty satire of the world of law practice, written in the form of an instructional code of ethics, providing advice such as "When old members of the bar do come into contact with the young men, they should by their conduct towards them make them (...) feel their insignificance. Show them that patronage that all great men show towards inferiors. They are obtruders in our select circle, but since they have wedged their way in, they are entitled to a little consideration, but not much; and that only because they are lawyers." Pp. 31-32. Marke, A Catalogue of the Law Collection of New York University (1953) 161. (shrink)

In the movieRegarding Henry, the main character, Henry Turner, is a lawyer who suffers brain damage as a result of being shot during a robbery. Before being wounded, the Old Henry Turner had been a successful lawyer, admired as a fierce competitor and well-known for his killer instinct. As a result of the injury to his brain, the New Henry Turner loses the personality traits that had made the Old Henry such a formidable adversary.

In “Professional Detachment: The Executioner of Paris,” I concluded with the cheap and some would say libelous suggestion that lawyers might accurately be described as serial liars, because they repeatedly try to induce others to believe in the truth of propositions or in the validity of arguments that they believe to be false. Good lawyers have responded with some indignation that, in calling zealous advocacy “lying,” I have misdescribed the practice of law. I wish to explain why I believe that (...) it is the practice of lawyering that engages in misdescription. (shrink)

Me d i a lawyers were surveyed about their perceptions of journalism ethics, whether they discussed journalism ethics with their media clients, and whether they believed such nonlegal counseling were appropriate. The study found that most media lawyers do contribute to ethical decision making i n news organizations and believe the practice appropriate. It concludes that, as a result, indust y and academic proponents of journalistic ethics should target not only journalists but also media lawyers in their attempts to foster (...) ethical decision making and public support for the news media. (shrink)

The author's aim is to prove that certain moral principles will always be etched into laws when the interest of society demands it and when morality as a set of norms guiding behavior no longer functions in an expected manner outside the system of law. In this paper, it is argued that morality is constituted within the law in a more profound way as well as in a way which is also much more difficult to identify than, for example, conventional (...) instructions concerning professional ethics may indicate. The main thesis is that de facto there are no particular professional ethics of lawyers beyond or above the ethical principles binding all people. (shrink)

Among key emerging societal principles to which a lawyer owes a high degree of fidelity are those that advance sustainability and that combat corruption. This essay considers the character of those...

Justice is an important concept in philosophy since ancient times and a key phenomenon in human life (in societies). First a judge at a court, two sides, their witnesses, Lawyer-A and Lawyer-B are considered in this quasi-essay inquiry. Then pointed out that, which lawyer better develops his/her arguments, his/her side will be advantageous. Reality conceals on the one side, truth (and rightness) stands on the other. However this will be risky in social life; it may be understood (...) by an ordinary man (or someone who doesn’t have a proper philosophical insight) as “who - obeying the rules- better diverts reality and shows that (s)he is right, his/her side wins.” Not only knowledge, but also philosophy itself loses prestige in such a tableau. Stemming from ‘Gettier-pictures,’ a “murderingevent” is presented thereafter. By help of pseudo-philosophers Prof. Truth, Prof. Reality and E.G. (“eyeglasser”) some perspectives related to “knowledge” and “knowing” are discussed while trying to analyze the mentioned event. At the end, (reflecting in the place of me) E.G. states some features (which are important for him) concerning knowledge. In this paper, ‘subject-dependency’ and internalizability (or better, interiorizability) of knowledge will be traced somehow; in addition to a search towards ‘relevant’, ‘valuable’, ‘illicit’, and ‘proper’ kinds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 127-141 [Access article in PDF] Lawyers, Ethics, and To Kill a Mockingbird Tim Dare I Lawyers are widely thought to be callous, self-serving, devious, and indifferent to justice, truth, and the public good. The law profession could do with a hero, and some think Atticus Finch of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird fits the bill. 1 Claudia Carver, for instance, urging lawyers to (...) adopt Atticus as a role model, writes: "I had lots of heroes when growing up.... Only one remains very much 'alive' for me.... Atticus made me believe in lawyer heroes." 2 Not everyone endorses Atticus's nomination. Most influentially, Monroe Freedman argues that Atticus is hardly admirable since, as a state legislator and community leader in a segregated society, he lives "his own life as the passive participant in that pervasive injustice." 3Although there is plainly disagreement between Freedman and his opponents, there is also an important point of consensus. Both sides to the debate accept that Atticus's suitability as a role model is settled by his character. Freedman argues that Atticus should not be a role model because he is not the admirable figure he is made out to be: appointed counsel to an unpopular defendant, Atticus admits that he had hoped "to get through life without a case of this kind" (p. 98). He excuses the leader of a lynch mob as "basically a good man" who "just has his blind spots along with the rest of us" (p. 173). He sees that "one of these days we're going to pay the bill" for racism, but hopes that payment, and so justice for blacks, will not come during his children's life times (pp. 243-44). 4 On the other hand, a leading Atticus supporter, Thomas Shaffer, argues that Atticus shows us precisely that what matters in professional ethics is character rather than moral principle: [End Page 127] One thing you could say about Atticus is that he had character.... We say that a good person has character, but we do not mean to say only that he believes in discernible moral principles and, under those principles, makes good decisions. We mean also to say something about who he is and to relate who he is to his good decisions. When discussion proceeds in this way, principles need not even be explicit. We can say, "How would Atticus see this situation?" or "What would Atticus do" rather than, "What principles apply?" 5So understood, the debate about Atticus connects with the recent resurrection of virtue ethics and with concomitant suggestions that a virtue or character-based ethics might provide a particularly promising approach to professional ethics in general and to legal ethics in particular.In the following essay, I argue that this character-based appeal to Atticus is misplaced. Although Atticus can teach us important lessons, they are not about the priority of virtue or character. Neither side to the debate has Atticus quite right. Sorting out what it is about him that makes him an appropriate or inappropriate role model for lawyers will both enrich our appreciation of a fine novel and further our understanding of what it is to be an ethical lawyer. More generally, my analysis will suggest that virtue ethics has little to offer toward an understanding of the moral responsibility of lawyers. II In brief, To Kill a Mockingbird is the story of the trial of a black man, Tom Robinson, for the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell, in racist Alabama in the 1930s. Appointed to defend Robinson, Atticus Finch takes the task seriously, drawing upon himself and his children the slurs and taunts of neighbors. At trial he proves that Robinson could not have raped Mayella, showing that her attacker was left-handed with two good arms, whereas Robinson had lost the use of his left arm in a cotton-gin accident. Robinson is convicted nonetheless. The verdict does not surprise Atticus. Racism, "Maycomb's usual disease" (p. 98), has made it a forgone conclusion. Indeed, shortly afterward, Tom is... (shrink)

ABSTRACTFormal representations of lawyer–client relations are often characterised by their regulative aspects, including codes of ethics and practice. In this article I look inside the relationship by returning to the sociology of Georg Simmel, who closely examined the basic units of sociality, especially dyads and triads. Using examples drawn from empirical research on corporate lawyers and clients and banks, I open up the lawyer/client dyad and show that in most cases the practices of lawyers and banks add noise (...) and interference to the relationship. The reason is that in many situations the basic unit of analysis for lawyer–client relationships should be the triad rather than the dyad. Whereas dyads are fundamentally stable, triads are the reverse, as they allow for alliances and defections creating permanent uncertainty. I take a number of examples where clients suffered in the alliances formed between their lawyers and the banks, leaving them on the periphery. It is time to recast the lawyer–client re... (shrink)

Lawyer misbehaviour occurs in every country and regulators often struggle to address it effectively. This article looks at six case studies of disciplined lawyers in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It notes the similarities in the cases and to disciplined lawyers previously described in case studies in the United States. In particular, these case studies involved male lawyers predominantly working in solo or small firms who were insufficiently exposed to positive professional values early in (...) practice. They were willing to lie to achieve their goals and were motivated, at least in part, by money. The article considers how the love of money, the behavioural disposition known as Machiavellianism, and the need to maintain self-esteem may have affected the lawyers' conduct. It also discusses the need to deal more effectively with recidivists, like the lawyers in these case studies, and identifies some possible regulatory responses to recidivism. (shrink)

In Australia, since 2004, there has been a move to expand the range of models for legal practice. Lawyers may now incorporate a legal practice, which may have non-legal directors and shareholders. They may also enter into a partnership with a range of non-legal professional partners. This change is happening at the same time that legal practice culture is moving from a professional service model to a business-oriented model. Increased pressures have been thrown into the mix by the global financial (...) crisis and the downturn in the legal market. Inevitably, these changes have created new conflict problems. When a lawyer is responsible to both clients and shareholders, how can that conflict be resolved? What are the roles of non-legal directors or partners? What if they have ethical or legal duties which conflict with a lawyer?s duty to a client? When a corporate legal business is listed on the stock exchange, what pressure may that bring to bear on the business model of the legal practice? How can all of these issues be resolved in grim financial times? The author will examine all of these issues in light of Australian and international experiences with new lawyering patterns and the global financial crisis. (shrink)

Law must evolve to play its part in addressing the anthropogenic threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. Lawyers have a key role to play in assisting that evolution, and the ethics that govern lawyers’ work will play a large part in determining its success. This article explains how four core approaches to legal ethics support lawyers in their work to address climate change and to facilitate more sustainable ways of living.

For nearly two centuries, Kronman argues, the aspirations of American lawyers were shaped by their allegiance to a distinctive ideal of professional excellence. In the last generation, however, this ideal has failed, undermining the identity of lawyers as a group and making it unclear to those in the profession what it means for them personally to have chosen a life in the law.

Sarat and Scheingold's book, Cause Lawyering, the first volume of its kind, coined the term for law as practiced by the politically motivated and those devoted to moral activism. The new collection examines cause lawyering in the global context, exploring the ways in which it is influencing and being influenced by the disaggregation of state power associated with democratization, and how democratization empowers lawyers who want to effect change. New configurations of state power create opportunities for altering the political and (...) social status quo. Cause lawyers are developing transnational networks to exploit these global opportunities, and to help strengthen international norms on issues such as human rights. The fifteen essays will focus on different national settings including South Africa, Israel, the U.K. and Latin America. (shrink)

Peter A Joy reviews Assessing Lawyer's Ethics: A Practitioner's Guide by Adrian Evans.