Introduction An Anxious Profession The Moral Terrain of Lawyering The Dominant View and Alternatives A Preview False Starts A Right to Injustice The Entitlement Argument The Libertarian Premise The Positivist Premise Libertarianism versus Positivism The Problem of Retroactivity The Problem of Private Legislation Conclusion Justice in the Long Run Confidentiality The Adversary System and Trial Preparation Identification with Clients and Cognitive Dissonance The Efficiency of Categorical Norms Aptitude for Complex Judgment Conclusion Should Lawyers Obey the Law? Lawyer Obligation in the Dominant View Positivist versus Substantive Conceptions of Law The Pervasiveness of Implicit Nullification Some Clarification about Nullification Nullification versus Reform Tax versus Prohibition Determination versus Obligation A Prima Facie Obligation? Divorce Perjury and Enforcement Advice Revisited Conclusion Legal Professionalism as Meaningful Work The Problem of Alienation The Professional Solution The Lost Lawyer The Brandeisian Evasions Self-Betrayal Conclusion Legal Ethics as Contextual Judgment The Structure of Legal Ethics Problems Some Objections The Moral Terrain of Lawyering Revisited Is Criminal Defense Different? Contested Issues Weak Arguments for Aggressive Criminal Defense Social Work, Justice, and Nullification The Stakes Conclusion Institutionalizing Ethics A Contextual Disciplinary Regime: The Tort Model Restructuring the Market for Legal Services Conclusion Notes Further Reading Acknowledgments Index
William H. Simon is Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law at Stanford University.
Though slender and unpretentious, William Simon's new book, The
Practice of Justice, packs a wallop. Aiming at nothing less
than a radical rethinking of lawyer's ethics, it proposes a new
conception of our professional responsibilities and challenges us
to examine critically the conventional norms of our professional
role. Along the way, it explores the scope and underpinning of our
loyalty to clients, our obligations to protect the rights of third
parties and our duty to promote justice...Simon's writing is lucid,
well-organized and jargon-free...The cogency of [his] critique of
the dominant view...shakes the grounds on which we currently
practice...Thus, Simon's work is profoundly unsettling, even
disorienting, both intellectually and emotionally. Therein lies its
enormous value. -- James M. Altman * New York Law Journal *
Thus, it is easily argued that lawyers should practice under a very
different ethical regime. The problem is, then, what should that
regime look like? How should we expect lawyers to act in the
current context? Simon offers a valuable answer, to be sure It
hasn't closed the debate over legal, but jump-started it by making
a serious and important contribution to thinking about the practice
of law. For that he merits great praise. -- Thomas M. Hilbink * The
Law and Politics Book Review *
William Simon is the George Orwell of the legal profession, a
fearless, bluntly honest and clear-sighted observer whose sharp
critique of lawyers' practices arises from his deep attachment to
their ideals. Simon's book is clearly one of the most important
statements of the aims, purposes, and practical ethics of law
practice ever to have appeared in this legal culture. His ambition
is to reconceptualize the entire subject, to give a thorough
exposition and critique of the ethical views that currently
permeate law practice in this society, and to put forward a
fully-fledged alternative. The special power and appeal of Simon's
approach consists in that he views legal ethics neither as solely
tied to specialized rules or roles nor as a branch of personal
morality, but as necessarily and intimately connected with the
justice-serving goals of the legal system. His analysis of how
lawyers can cope with the inevitable complexities and ambiguities
of a legal system shot through with conflicting purposes is
especially brilliant. Unlike so much writing on professional
ethics, Simon's is neither naively idealistic nor cynical and
demoralized: it is impressive because his views are grounded in
considerable experience, personal and vicarious, of how lawyers
actually behave--every point is illustrated by thickly described
examples of real practice situations--and are also linked to basic
conceptions of jurisprudence and social theory. It would be hard to
find a better illustration in legal literature of how theory can
inform and structure inquiries into practice, and the knowledge of
practice in turn help to qualify and amplify theoretical insight.
Original and unconventional, Simon's work challenges almost all of
the prevailing orthodoxies of legal ethics. Whether or not lawyers
are ultimately convinced by Simon's efforts to reconstruct legal
ethics on a foundation of lawyering as a justice-seeking
profession, if they read his work carefully they will never be able
again to think about their work in the comfortable old formula of
zealous advocacy in an adversary system. -- Robert W. Gordon * Yale
Law School *
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |