Boon Andrew. The Ethics and Conduct of Lawyers in England and Wales. Hart Publishing,1999. — 808 p.. 1999
This edition of this book was a long time in the making. Jenny Levin and I had planned to produce a third edition much sooner. In the event, Jenny’s poor health meant that we delayed. In spring 2012 Jenny was feeling much better. We had a planning meeting and worked out how to proceed. Unfortunately, Jenny felt poorly in the autumn and died in March 2013. One of Jenny’s many great achievements was her contribution to the Law Society group that produced the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct 2007. This was the first statement of solicitors’ ethics to claim that title and it looks as if it may be the last. A summary of Jenny’s other considerable contributions to the discipline of law and legal practice was published by the Legal Action Group.
Ideals
Culture
‘When lawyers fall out! It would make a great ITV series. You’d see CCTV coverage of them hitting each other viciously with their pink-ribboned “bundles” before going back to the robing room for a laugh and a smoke. That’s the way I feel about Tony Blair and Michael Howard. I picture them slapping each other on the back in private, having long forgotten whose client had just gone down for 15 years’.1
Power
‘In The Conflict of Faculties, Kant noted that the “higher disciplines”—theology, law and medicine—are clearly entrusted with a social function. In each of these disciplines, a serious crisis must generally occur in the contract by which this function has been delegated before the question of its basis comes to seem a real problem of social practice. This appears to be happening today’.1
Organisation
‘Arising from the proposal that lawyers with different professional qualifications should be permitted to work together as equals, the first and most important issue is to ensure that there is a high level of ethical standards within the legal practice’.1
Governance
‘Be strong,be supple; that is the way to rule’.1
Education
‘I always was of opinion that the placing a youth to study with an attorney was rather a prejudice than a help. We are all too apt by shifting on them our business, to encroach on that time which should be devoted to their studies. The only help a youth wants is to be directed what books to read, and in what order to read them’.1
Regulation
‘But one who is intended coming to the profession might ask where is this code to be found, and how is to be learnt? The answer to the first question is in the traditions of the profession. The answer to the second is in the Schools of the profession, its ancient craft guilds, called the Inns of Court, where all matters of professional conduct are freely and daily discussed, and where the transgressor is answerable for his misconduct. It is, of course, incapable of being stated or written out
Discipline
Loyalty
‘I’ll take fifty per cent efficiency to get one hundred per cent loyalty’.1
Confidences
Legal advice is not confined to telling the client the law. It must include advice as to what should prudently and sensibly be done in the relevant context... We want people to obey the law, enter into valid and effective transactions, settle their affairs responsibly when they separate or divorce, make wills which will withstand the challenge of the disappointed, and present their best case before all kinds of court, tribunal and inquiry in an honest and responsible manner.1
Conflicts of Interest
‘There can be no betrayal if there is no pre-existing trust’.1
Fees
‘There are three golden rules in the profession [criminal law]... the first... thoroughly terrify your client. Second, find out how much money he has and where it is. Third, get it. The merest duffer can usually succeed in following out the first two of these precepts, but to accomplish the third requires often a master’s art. The ability actually to get one’s hands on the coin is what differentiates the really great criminal lawyer from his inconspicuous brethren’.1
Individual Third Parties
‘The very structure of law, as it is created, practiced and enforced, assumes a duality, an otherness - the defendant, the opposing side, the client, those inside the law, and those outside’1
Collective Third Parties
‘uncontrolled expansion of libertarian ideology into lawyers’ common consciousness—to the point where lawyers have come to feel genuinely affronted and indignant when any authority tries to articulate a public obligation of lawyers that may end up putting them at odds with clients. We have no public obligations, they claim; we are private agents for private parties (though at the same time they claim privileges and immunities that ordinary citizens don’t have); our loyalties to clients must
Service
‘It is demonstrably true that today the sharpest critics of the legal profession and the administration of justice are judges, lawyers,and teachers of law. It is historically true that the great legal reforms of the twentieth century have been devised, fought for, and established by lawyers. Often they have been opposed by too many members of the profession; often they have won the day only by securing public support; but the fact remains that the constructive leadership came from within the
Employment
‘Psychologists, organization theorists, and economists all know that the ethics of ethical decision-making change dramatically when the individual works in an organisational setting. Loyalties become tangled and personal responsibility gets diffused. Bucks are passed and guilty knowledge bypassed. Chains of command not only tie people’s hands, they fetter their minds and consciences as well. Reinhold Niebuhr called one of his books Moral Man, Immoral Society, and I suggest for students of et
Litigation
‘The one great principle of English law is, to make business for itself’.1
Negotiation
‘Maintaining moral sensitivity and awareness is crucial to the practice of law. The profession must resist inroads on the lawyer’s commitment to the truth, and take steps to correct rules that lessen this commitment. The unique role lawyers occupy in our society and their position as officers of our judicial system require that their word be trusted. More is required of a lawyer than the custom of the marketplace, than bargaining in a bazaar, or in playing poker. Lawyers must feel that theirs
Advocacy
‘It should be remembered that if counsel fails to appear the opposing counsel will take his place and in the best of faith adduce the facts and state the law that he must meet and overcome. Here is “priesthood”’.1 ‘today we live in a consumerist society in which people have a much greater awareness of their rights. If they have suffered a wrong as a result of the provision of negligent professional services, they expect to have the right to claim redress. It tends to erode confidence in the
Alternative Dispute Resolution
‘Why... are lawyers, in essence, such obscure men? Why do their undoubted talents yield so poor a harvest of immortality? The answer, it seems to me... is their professional aim and function [is] not to get at the truth, but simply to carry on combats between ancient rules’.1
More legal literature on Laws.Studio
Books and textbooks on the discipline Professional ethics of a lawyer:
- Luban David. Legal Ethics and Human Dignity. Cambridge University Press,2007. — 350 p. - 2007 ãîä
- Griffiths-Baker Janine. Serving Two Masters: Conflicts of Interest in the Modern Law Firm. Hart Publishing,2002. — 227 p. - 2002 ãîä
- Grisso T.. Evaluating Competencies: Forensic Assessments and Instruments. 2nd edition. — Springer,2002. — 564 p. - 2002 ãîä
-
Agricultural law -
Constitutional law -
Fundamentals of Advocacy -
History of state and law -
Muslim (Islamic) law -
Professional ethics of a lawyer -
Roman law -
Theory of state and law -
UK Bar -
US Bar -
-
Conflictology -
Ecology -
Economy -
Finance -
History -
Law -
Medicine -
Philosophy -
Religious studies -