There are two main questions that any account of corporate lawyers’ moral obligations needs to answer: (1) Do corporate lawyers have moral obligations to third parties? and (2) In cases of conflict between obligations to the corporation and obligations to third parties, which should prevail? This Article offers answers to these questions in the context of lawyers working in medical corporations. I argue that lawyers do have moral obligations to third parties, and that in cases where patients’ rights are being (...) violated by a medical company, patients’ rights should prevail. Consequently, attorney–client confidentiality rules should be relaxed to allow for attorney disclosures in egregious cases of potential harm to third parties. (shrink)

This book focuses on the client issues which are now becoming an integral part of the work of all practising solicitors. It focuses on the pro-active way that will enable the practising solicitor. as well as the new entrant to the profession. to learn and apply techniques and work practices that will help to ensure that the needs and perceptions of clients are satisfied regularly and systematically. This is set out in simple. practical and realistic stages throughout the book. (...) The author suggests that solicitors and law firms adopt a new and exciting strategy which focuses everyone in the firm. from senior partner to office junior. on meeting and exceeding client expectations. (shrink)

Stephen L. Pepper argues that lawyers and clients often act together in ways that their moral convictions would prevent them from acting individually. In an attempt to address this problem, I explore the nature of the attorney's responsibility to help her client reach autonomous decisions. To do this, I review the work of some prominent medical ethicists on a parallel to Pepper's problem in doctor-patient relationships.

Attorneys regularly prepare advance healthcare directives for their clients. However, attorneys, lacking medical knowledge, are often considered ill-equipped to prepare such documents. While recognizing and respecting the fact that advance healthcare directives pertain to decisions about medical care, this article proposes that attorneys who prepare advance healthcare directives nevertheless provide a valuable service.

Lawyers and judges in the early American republic were surprisingly reluctant to penalise colleagues for malpractice and misconduct towards clients. Though they were part of a legal culture obsessed with preserving lawyers’ moral rectitude, they nonetheless remained sceptical of attempts to address malpractice. This article explores that apparent contradiction. I analyse allegedly wronged clients’ unsuccessful attempts to seek legal satisfaction, whether in civil, criminal, or professional suspension proceedings. I find that the period’s public-spirited legal ethics was in fact a major (...) contributor to these former clients’ difficulties. Legal reformers worried constantly about the dangers to the republic of too-zealous advocacy, which might undermine the public interest. These concerns helped render the opposite problem – of lazy or even duplicitous client ‘advocacy’ – invisible and irremediable. Stories from the past, I argue, help illuminate a tendency to overlook malpractice that continues to this day. (shrink)

Role of lawyer -- Regulation of lawyers -- Defining and forming the lawyer-client relationship -- Compensating lawyers -- Confidentiality -- Incompatible relations -- Representing organizations -- Duties to the court and others -- Advertising and solicitation -- Judicial conduct.

This book proposes a new model of professional ethics enabling lawyers to advise clients upon both the law and ethics. This will better protect clients, and society, and enhance lawyers' professional obligations. The current model of legal ethics, developed in the 19th century, specified that the role of lawyers was only to interpret the law, not also to give ethical advice. This was acceptable to lawyers, clients, and society at that time. However, this is not the case now and legal (...) ethics no longer reflects the needs of modern legal practice. This book draws on moral philosophy to present a new model of legal of ethics that explains the analytical process to include ethical advice. It analyses the potential harm of the present model to the legal profession who have duties to the law and justice that may compete with demands by clients to serve them. Further, lawyers' duty to clients to act in their best interests is sometimes not adequately fulfilled as legal ethics does not permit lawyers to give ethical advice even if it may be in clients' best interests to do so. The work includes a detailed case study of corporate law practice to show why a new legal ethics is required. Other case examples are provided to demonstrate that lawyers practicing in all areas of law encounter ethical issues and they too will benefit from a new legal ethics. The book will be essential reading for students, academics, lawyers and professional bodies. (shrink)

Legal Ethics : A Guide for future practitioners helps students better understand how ethical rules are applied in real-world legal practice and encourages them to discover, discuss, and debate, about different scenarios that can make up ethical dilemmas in their future careers. The interactive eBook format allows students to read the text of each chapter and engage with digital learning activities -- including pre-assessments; embedded links to articles, examples, and resources; dynamic scenarios; cases; videos; and digital flashcards -- all within (...) a single system. The opening chapter discusses ethics, morality, and regulation of the legal profession. Students learn about the structure of legal ethics in the United States, why lawyers are regulated, and the importance of maintain the integrity of the profession. Additional chapters cover establishing and terminating the attorney-client relationship; competency and diligence; attorney fees; and communication, confidentiality, and privilege. Two dedicated chapters explore conflict of interest, including concurrent conflicts of interest, waivers, imputation, and screening, personal conflicts, successive or former clients, and more. Closing chapters address the lawyer as advocate, decision-making in the lawyer-client relationship, and advertising and solicitation. designed to inspire lively debate and critical thought, Legal ethics is an ideal resource for courses and programs in law." -- Backcover. (shrink)

Child custody evaluators frequently encounter 3 complex problems: assessment of highly contested cases; how to help the court, attorneys, and clients struggle with the ambiguity of the "best interest" standard; and ethical issues in assessing the children's preferences for their primary custodial parent. The purpose of this article is to describe the methodological implications of recent custody evaluation guidelines and recent research. Recommendations include reliance on family-process oriented diagnostic approaches and functional assessment methods, use of evaluation methods in which relevant (...) parties have an opportunity to state their views and rationale concerning the children's best interests, and understanding of the content areas relevant to assessing children's custodial preferences at different developmental levels. (shrink)

For more than a decade, American lawyers have bewailed the ethical crisis in their profession, wringing their hands about its bad image. But their response has been limited to spending money on public relations, mandating education, and endlessly revising ethical rules. In this book, Richard Abel will argue that these measures will do little or nothing to solve the problems illustrated by the six disciplinary case studies featured in this book unless the legal monopoly enjoyed by attorneys in the U.S. (...) is drastically contracted. Richard Abel examines some of the most common ethical complaints made about lawyers in Lawyers in the Dock. Using detailed records of disciplinary proceedings, he describes the actions surrounding certain cases based on three of the most common complaints: neglecting the client by failing to pursue cases diligently; overcharging of clients by mystifying billing practices; and betraying adversaries and courts out of excessive loyalty to clients or causes. In this book, Richard Abel will argue that these measures will do little or nothing to solve the problems exposed by his six disciplinary case studies unless structural changes are made to the legal monopoly in order to restore the public trust in lawyers. Lawyers in the Dock is essential reading for lawyers, law students, and potential clients who wish to restore trust and professional responsibility in the legal profession. (shrink)

With wit and intelligence, Leo Katz seeks to understand the basic rules and concepts underlying the moral, linguistic, and psychological puzzles that plague the criminal law. "_Bad Acts and Guilty Minds_... revives the mind, it challenges superficial analyses, it reminds us that underlying the vast body of statutory and case law, there is a rationale founded in basic notions of fairness and reason.... It will help lawyers to better serve their clients and the society that permits attorneys to hang out (...) their shingles."—Edward N. Costikyan, _New York Times Book Review_. (shrink)

Suppose an accountant discovers evidence of shady practices while ex amining the books of a client. What should he or she do? Accountants have a professional obligation to respect the confidentiality of their cli ents' accounts. But, as an ordinary citizen, our accountant may feel that the authorities ought to be informed. Suppose a physician discov ers that a patient, a bus driver, has a weak heart. If the patient contin ues bus driving even after being informed of the (...) heart condition, should the physician inform the driver's company? Respect for patient confidentiality would say, no. But what if the driver should suffer a heart attack while on duty, causing an accident in which people are killed or seriously injured? Would the doctor bear some responsibility for these consequences? Special obligations, such as those of confidentiality, apply to any one in business or the professions. These obligations articulate, at least in part, what it is for someone to be, say, an accountant or a physician. Since these obligations are special, they raise a real possibility of con flict with the moral principles we usually accept outside of these spe cial relationships in business and the professions. These conflicts may become more accentuated for a professional who is also a corporate employee-a corporate attorney, an engineer working for a construction company, a nurse working as an employee of a hospital. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s, internal corporate investigations have become commonplace in the U. S., with an upsurge occurring as a result of the corporate scandals of 2001-02 involving Adelphi Communications Corporation, Enron, Merck & Company, Riggs Bank, and other companies accused of financial malfeasance. After an introduction, this article first presents the U. S. public policy framework (as implemented through the U. S. Sentencing Commission, the U. S. Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission) encouraging the use of corporate (...) internal investigations and self-reporting of these results to federal authorities; second, evaluates this framework, identifying the public policy issues inhibiting companies from using corporate internal investigations and self-reporting significant results; third, proposes a policy incentive regime which attempts to ameliorate these outstanding issues; and fourth, offer policy recommendations and suggestions for further research on this topic, including increasing the maximum deduction in the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines Culpability Score available to a firm for development of an Effective Compliance and Ethics Program (from 3 to 5 points), and self-reporting the results of an internal investigation (from 5 to 7 points); evaluating the effectiveness of these enhancements in legal incentives over a period of 5-7 years after implementation; instituting a formal federal government effort to educate the American business community on the corporate reputation (and financial) benefits of an effective compliance program; and protecting attorney-client privilege and work product protection, through legislative action, to encourage company executives and directors to utilize independent, outside attorneys to conduct fair, comprehensive, and impartial internal investigations. (shrink)

This collection cuts across conventional disciplinary boundaries to address the roles, responsibilities, and regulation of contemporary lawyers. Contributors address common concerns from diverse perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, political science, and organisational behaviour. Topics include the nature of professions, the structure of practice, the constraints of an adversarial system, the attorney-client relationship, the practical value of moral theory, the role of race and gender, and the public service responsibilities of lawyers and law students.

The relationship between science, law and justice has become a pressing issue with US Supreme Court decisions beginning with Daubert v. Merrell-Dow Pharmaceutical. How courts review scientific testimony and its foundation before trial can substantially affect the possibility of justice for persons wrongfully injured by exposure to toxic substances. If courts do not review scientific testimony, they will deny one of the parties the possibility of justice. Even if courts review evidence well, the fact and perception of greater judicial scrutiny (...) increases litigation costs and attorney screening of clients. Mistaken review of scientific evidence can decrease citizen access to the law, increase unfortunate incentives for firms not to test their products, lower deterrence for wrongful conduct and harmful products, and decrease the possibility of justice for citizens injured by toxic substances. This book introduces these issues, reveals the relationships that pose problems, and shows how justice can be denied. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rebellion and the SacredSacrifice in Camus's RebelBrian Harding (bio)René Girard has argued, in "Camus's Stranger Retried," that Camus's later novel The Fall represents a kind of novelistic conversion on Camus's part: an admission that the ethics of The Stranger were faulty. This is a criticism not only of a character (Mersault) but of the author's own views. In fact, on the Girardian reading, The Fall recognizes that Camus's own (...) activism was never purely altruistic, but partook of a kind of unstated competition, seeking to outstrip others in care for the downtrodden, and thereby prove his supremacy. Both Camus and Clamence, the lawyer in The Fall, recognize that (as Girard puts it)Mercy, in his hands, was a secret weapon against the unmerciful, a more complex form of self-righteousness. His real desire was not to save his clients but to prove his moral superiority by discrediting the judges.1The drama of The Fall is this realization and its ramifications. Beyond this, Girard argues, it represents Camus's judgment on his own work; it represents [End Page 29] the realization that his writings hitherto lacked self-criticism. Until The Fall, Camus revolted against everything but his pride, but in The Fall he turns his critical powers inward, writing the novel as a kind of auto-criticism. I think there is a lot of truth to this, and in what follows, it guides my interpretations of The Rebel.Girard's comments on The Plague suggest that he sees it as essentially "romantic" in the technical sense he gives that term. Like The Stranger, it falls into the illusion of authenticity and autonomy: Dr. Rieux stands apart from the city, paternalistically guiding it without succumbing to the infections circulating around him.2 To the extent that The Rebel is often paired with The Plague (in the same way The Myth of Sisyphus is joined to The Stranger) one might expect that the same could be said of that philosophical essay—that is, that it persists in a romantic delusion of being above or separate from the problems it diagnoses and that The Rebel's defense of the oppressed only serves to assuage the author's conscience, reassuring him that he is one of the good ones—just as did Clamence's work as a defense attorney.That expectation is, I think, only half right. The Rebel, I believe, oscillates between romantic lie and novelistic truth; Camus senses that he is not above the fray and that the very act of rebellion itself unleashes furies that one struggles to tame. Whether he has reached the full consciousness represented by The Fall is uncertain, but it is clear to me that, at times at least, this awareness rises to the surface in The Rebel. Indeed, the emergence and repression of this awareness are part of the book's fascination and flaws. The apparent inconstancy between Camus's lionization of rebellion and his profound worries about what it unleashes is rooted in this oscillation. Because of this oscillation, The Rebel is too complex a text to be treated in a paper of a reasonable length. To simplify matters, I focus on two parts whose interest to readers of Contagion will need no explanation: first, Camus's gnomic remarks on the relationship between rebellion and the sacred, and second, Camus's discussion of the killing of King Louis and the Terror. Following that, I close with some general remarks.REBELLION AND THE SACREDCamus's rebellion is intimately related to the sacred [le sacré]. To be sure, we should not assume that just because Camus and Girard use the same word that they mean the same thing by it. In fact, Camus primarily uses the term to refer to a religious sensibility without developing, for example, a theory of the violent origins of the sacred. Nevertheless, Camus seems to sense that there is a [End Page 30] connection between the sacred and violence. Moreover, it is of course impossible that Camus intended to refer to Girard's work when he alludes to the sacred. Nevertheless, if Girard is right about the meaning and function of the sacred... (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)

Sorcery and Shamanism: Curanderos and Clients in Northern Peru. Donald Joralemon and Douglas Sharon. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993. 306 pp. $35.00 (cloth).

In “Ethical and Legal Concerns Associated With the Comprehension of Legal Language and Concepts,” Joseph Wszalek (2017) discusses legal-language comprehension in the context of the attorney–client...

Veterinarians have obligations towards both the animals they treat and their clients, the owners of the animals. With both groups, veterinarians have complicated relations; many times the interests of both groups conflict. In this article, using Q-methodology as a method for discourse analysis, the following question is answered: How do Dutch practicing veterinarians conceptualize animals and their owners and their professional responsibility towards both? The main part of the article contains descriptions of four different discourses on animals and their owners (...) and on veterinarian professional responsibilities that prevail among veterinarians. The factual images veterinarians have of animals and their owners are connected to different moral questions and solutions to these questions. (shrink)

The experience of loss of agency is one of the reasons for clients to go for psychotherapy. Enhancing clients’ agency has been considered a fundamental factor for successful treatment in psychiatry and psychotherapy, yet few studies have investigated the interactional realization of how therapists do this in authentic psychotherapeutic encounters. Drawing on audio-recorded talk-in-interaction between clients and psychotherapists in cognitive behavioral therapy encounters at a mental health center in China, this paper uses the method of conversation analysis to demonstrate how (...) therapists ascribe agency positions to clients by issuing formulations of what the clients have just said. Two types of formulation were identified: affirmative formulations and challenging formulations. In the first type, the therapists highlight the positive aspect of the clients’ description of their experiences and ascribe an agentic position to the clients. In the second, the therapists challenge the clients’ implausible views and their non-agentic positioning of themselves. This study shows that the therapists’ formulation could be employed to manage the epistemic difficulties associated with claiming knowledge about the clients’ inner states and assessing their feelings. In this sense, the formulation is a robust interactional device in negotiating epistemic problems in addressing the clients’ experiences and promoting their agency in therapy. However, it is noteworthy that in the challenging formulation, therapists claim privileged access to the clients’ knowledge domain and challenge their prior epistemic status, which might run the risk of engendering clients’ resistance. (shrink)

We surveyed 223 APA members to investigate the roles of therapists' sex, theoretical orientation, interpersonal boundaries, and clients' sex in predicting therapists' assessments of the ethicality of nonerotic dual relationships with their clients. Results indicated that therapists' sex, interpersonal boundaries, and theoretical orientation influenced ethical judgments of these relationships. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

In its 2018 global study on occupational fraud, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners found asset misappropriation the most common category of fraud with expense reimbursement schemes the most frequent and costly form of misappropriation. In this case, Cassandra, a valued junior attorney on track to become a partner at her law firm, is strongly encouraged by a supportive senior attorney to join him in ordering an after-hours meal in clear violation of the firm's meal expensing policy. While (...) Cassandra recognizes that taking such action would be wrong, she is unclear what to do next. Sometimes the desire to do the right thing is fraught with complexities about the right thing to do. The purpose of the case is for students to examine the competing interests Cassandra faces in relation to the responsibilities she owes to her employer, colleagues, clients, profession, and herself. (shrink)

Federal regulations in the United States have shaped Institutional Review Boards to focus on protecting individual human subjects. Health services research studies focusing on healthcare institutions such as hospitals or clinics do not have individual human subjects. Since U.S. federal regulations are silent on what type of review, if any, these studies require, different IRBs may approach similar studies differently, resulting in undesirable variation in the review of studies focusing on healthcare institutions. Further, although these studies do not focus on (...) individual human subjects, they may pose risks to participating institutions, as well as individuals who work at those institutions, if identifying information becomes public. (shrink)

Major changes in the technological, societal, political, and economic environment have forced organizations across Europe to reshape and expand their strategic communication activities. However, knowledge of the future viability of public relations, employee and consumer communication, public affairs, or investor relations is often scarce. This has led to an increased demand for external consulting in the field. The quality of such intangible services is difficult to assess; this is a challenge for clients and consultants alike, and often results in conflict. (...) Communication research has rarely addressed this topic to date. This article expands the body of knowledge by introducing the key concepts, exploring drivers for quality assurance, and identifying sources of conflict in an empirical study of 1,558 communication practitioners in 43 European countries. The findings provide insights into current practices, indicate ways to secure quality and avoid conflict, and suggest directions for future research in an area of growing importance. (shrink)

Nearly everyone is at times an advocate. By professional role, some people act quite regularly as advocates: lawyers, legislators, executives, merchants, and, in many contexts, educators. Lawyers often consider themselves obligated to maintain a special “zeal” toward their clients' interests, and there are many laws and principles of legal ethics that govern advocacy by attorneys. This article concerns the ethics of advocacy, not its legal aspects. Indeed, I cannot even address the full range of moral issues raised by advocacy; I (...) focus mainly on an area rarely addressed by writers in legal ethics and insufficiently examined in the genral literature of ethics. It is the domain of individual conscience, the arena of internal states and processes, such as desires, beliefs, and thoughts. I am particularly interested in how moral standards apply to the use of reasons in the practice of advocacy. My broadest thesis is that advocacy needs an ethics of reasons, and not just of external behavior. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the role of pluralistic ignorance in perceptions of unethical behavior. Buckley, Harvey, and Beu (2000) suggested that pluralistic ignorance plays a role such that individuals mistakenly believe that others are more unethical than they actually are. In two studies, we confirmed that pluralistic ignorance influences perceptions of ethics in a manner consistent with what Buckley et al. suggested. The implications of pluralistic ignorance in perceptions of ethics are discussed with suggestions for (...) how pluralistic ignorance might be reduced and how research in this area may be extended. (shrink)

This law school casebook was developed by a team of professors at Harvard Law School to introduce students with little or no quantitative background to the basic analytical techniques that attorneys need to master to represent their clients effectively. This casebook presents clear explanations of decision analysis, games and information, contracting, accounting, finance, microeconomics, economic analysis of the law, fundamentals of statistics, and multiple regression analysis. References and examples have been thoroughly updated for this 3rd edition, and exposition of a (...) number of key topics has been reworked to reflect insights gained from teaching these topics using the 1st edition to many hundreds of Harvard Law students over the past decade. (shrink)

When a health care professional contacts a health care attorney for advice about how to deal with a medical error involving a patient, what is the most ethically appropriate response? Honesty is the best policy; the ethical health lawyer should advise the client to tell the patient the truth. This advice is neither naïve nor impractical, as we will show. More importantly, it is without question the right thing to do for a number of sound reasons. It may (...) not be a natural inclination or an easy task to accomplish; several countervailing factors discourage health professionals from telling patients the truth about medical errors. However, we will argue that resistance to truthful disclosure can and should be overcome by rational arguments that also take into consideration the psychodynamics of the patient-health professional relationship. (shrink)

Health care may be the most regulated industry in the United States, at least in terms of the volume of State and Federal laws and regulations that affect business practices. Lawyers who counsel health care clients often face a dilemma: is the client seeing legitimate advice about the legal limitations on his or her conduct, or is the client seeking to use the lawyer's skills to evade the law? The history of health care fraud prosecutions involving lawyers and (...) other professional advisors in recent years makes this an issue of more than academic interest. The well publicized case of U.S. v. Anderson, in which health care counsel faced charges as co-defendants for purported kickback violations, the recent prosecution of Ernst & Young for allegedly aiding Medicare fraud on behalf of client hospitals, and the recent indictment and conviction of an in-house lawyer in a national durable medical equipment fraud case, make clear that the wrongful use of legal advice by health care clients can lead to significant criminal and civil charges against attorneys. (shrink)

David Luban argues in this lecture that the moral foundation of the lawyer's profession lies in the defense of human dignity-and the chief moral danger facing the profession arises when lawyers assault human dignity rather than defend it. The concept of human dignity has a rich philosophical tradition, with some philosophers identifying human dignity as a metaphysical property of individuals-a property such as having a soul, or possessing autonomy. Luban argues instead that human dignity is a relational property of "the (...) dignifier" and "the dignified," emphasizing that assaulting human dignity humiliates the victim. Lawyers honor the human dignity of others by protecting them against humiliations, and defile that dignity by subjecting them to humiliations. The lecture develops these ideas through four traditional issues in legal ethics: the right of criminal defendants to an advocate, the duty of confidentiality, paternalism of attorneys toward their clients, and pro bono service. (shrink)

As Federal Indian Law has evolved, many questions have been posed regarding tribal jurisdiction. This paper examines the jurisdiction tribes have over member Indians, non-member Indians, and non-member, non-Indians. It addresses the ethical challenge faced by tribal attorneys who represent non-member Indian clients in a manner that ultimately undermines tribal sovereignty.