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legal ethics, principles of conduct that members of the legal profession are expected to observe in their practice. They are an outgrowth of the development of the legal profession itself.
(Read Peter Singer’s Britannica entry on ethics.)
Background
Practitioners of law emerged when legal systems became too complex for all those affected by them to fully understand and apply the law. Certain individuals with the required ability mastered the law and offered their skills for hire. No prescribed qualifications existed, and these specialists were not subject to legal controls. The incompetent, unscrupulous, and dishonest charged exorbitant fees, failed to perform as promised, and engaged in delaying and obstructive tactics in the tribunals before which they appeared. Action to prevent such abuses was taken by legislation and by judicial and other governmental measures. The right to practice law came to be limited to those who met prescribed qualifications. Expulsion from practice and criminal penalties were introduced for various types of misconduct.
These measures did more than correct abuses. They also gave recognition to the social importance of the functions performed by lawyers and identified those who were qualified to perform them. A consciousness developed within the profession of the need for standards of conduct. This became the core of legal, or professional, ethics.
Prior statutes, court rules, and other government directives remained in force along with the profession’s self-imposed ethical standards. Together with malpractice actions, they constituted the sum total of the restraints placed upon lawyers in regard to their professional conduct. This pattern has continued to the present time.
In many countries professional associations of lawyers have sought to commit the principles of ethical conduct to written form, but a written code is not essential. Ethical principles may exist by common understanding as well as in the literature and writings of the profession. A code, however, makes ethically obligatory principles readily available to the practitioner (and the public) and thus helps to assure wider observance of them. When such a code does exist, it usually contains both statements of general ethical principles and particular rules governing specific problems of professional ethics. But no code can foresee every ethical problem that may arise in the practice of law. Hence, in many jurisdictions codes are supplemented by opinions rendered and published by bar association committees.
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Dual responsibility of the legal professional
Principles of legal ethics, whether written or unwritten, not only regulate the conduct of legal practice but also reflect the basic assumptions, premises, and methods of the legal system within which the lawyer operates. They reflect as well the profession’s conception of its own role in the administration of justice. In democratic countries such as the United States, Canada, the member states of the European Union, and Japan, this conception includes the fundamental assumption that the typical lawyer, although principally engaged in the representation of private interests, has a considerable public responsibility as well. For a lawyer is an officer of the court who plays a critical role in upholding the integrity of the legal system. Accordingly, a lawyer must eschew tactics that would defeat the fair administration of justice, even while working vigorously to advance the interests of a client.
Naturally, the interests of client and society do not always coincide, and the principles of legal ethics do not always indicate the lawyer’s obligations in such situations. Should a lawyer cross-examine an adverse witness in a way that undermines or destroys his testimony when the lawyer believes the witness is actually telling the truth? May he invoke rules of evidence to exclude points that would weigh against his case but that he considers to be true or probably true? May he take advantage of the errors of an unskilled opponent? Should he demand a jury trial for purposes of delay when such a trial would have no advantage for his client? These questions may be answered differently in legal systems that operate on different premises. A system in which a lawyer presents a client’s case in the most favourable light permitted by law and in which the court must decide the merits of the case may well produce different answers than those produced in a system that assigns a higher priority to the lawyer’s duty to the state to assure proper administration of justice.
Areas of application
Conflict of interest
A lawyer is at times faced with the question of whether to represent two or more clients whose interests conflict. Quite aside from his ethical obligations, the legal systems of the world generally prohibit a lawyer from representing a client whose interests conflict with those of another, unless both consent.
In Anglo-American legal systems the prohibition has three aspects. First, the attorney is not permitted to represent two or more clients concurrently if, in order to further the interests of one, he must forgo advancing the conflicting interests of another. In short, he cannot be both for and against a client. Second, he cannot subsequently accept employment from another for the purpose of undoing what he had earlier been retained to accomplish. Third, he may not accept subsequent employment from another if it involves the use, the appearance of use, or the possible use of confidential information received from his former client. Such actions are forbidden by law and by legal ethics.
To illustrate, an attorney may not as a matter of course prepare an instrument for both buyer and seller in which their respective rights are defined. He may not prepare an instrument or negotiate a settlement for a client and later accept employment from another to defeat that instrument or settlement. He ought not represent both a driver and his passenger in recovering damages from another party charged with negligent driving in a collision, since the passenger may have a claim against his own driver as well. He may not represent two or more defendants in a criminal prosecution if their respective defenses are inconsistent or, possibly, even when the case against one is stronger than the case against the other. The same principles apply with respect to interests of the attorney that may detract from the full and faithful representation of his clients. For example, he may not purchase property that he has been retained to acquire for his client, nor may he draw a will in which he is a beneficiary.
These conflict-of-interest prohibitions are not absolute. The client may consent to the representation after full disclosure of the actual or possible conflict. But even the client’s consent may not suffice if public interest is deemed to be adversely affected.
Difficult conflict-of-interest issues also arise in the context of government service. In the United States, for example, it has become common for lawyers to pass frequently back and forth between public and private employment, a situation that has enabled some of them to use their position in the former setting to benefit their clients and themselves in the latter. The problems that result from this so-called “revolving door” have been addressed both in legislation and in rules of professional conduct. Efforts have also been made to address the situation of the practicing lawyer who, as a member of a legislature, is enlisted by clients to support or oppose legislation or to secure favourable decisions from administrative agencies that are dependent on legislative financial support.
