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Author Simon, William H., 1947-

Title The practice of justice : a theory of lawyers' ethics / William H. Simon
Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1998

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 253 pages)
Contents Frontmatter -- Contents -- 1 Introduction -- 2 A Right to Injustice -- 3 Justice in the Long Run -- 4 Should Lawyers 0 bey the Law? -- 5 Legal Professionalism as Meaningful Work -- 6 Legal Ethics as Contextual Judgment -- 7 Is Criminal Defense Different? -- 8 Institutionalizing Ethics -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Acknowledgments -- Index
Summary Should a lawyer keep a client's secret even when disclosure would exculpate a person wrongly accused of crime? The Practice of Justice is a fresh look at this and other traditional questions about the ethics of lawyering
Should a lawyer keep a client's secrets even when disclosure would exculpate a person wrongly accused of a crime? To what extent should a lawyer exploit loopholes in ways that enable clients to gain unintended advantages? When can lawyers justifiably make procedural manoeuvres that defeat substantive rights? This book looks at these and other traditional questions about the ethics of lawyering. William Simon, a legal theorist with experience in practice, charges that the profession's standard approach to these questions is incoherent and implausible.;At the same time, Simon reflects the ethical approaches most frequently purposed by the professions critics. The problem, he insists, does not lie with the profession's commitment to legal values over those of ordinary morality, nor does it arise from the adversary system. Rather, Simon shows that the critical weakness of the standard approach is its reliance on a distinctive style of judgment - categorical, rule-bound, rigid - that is both ethically unattractive and rejected by most modern legal thought outside the realm of legal ethics. He develops an alternative approach based on a different, more contextual style of judgment widely accepted in other areas of legal thought.;The author uses discussions of actual cases, including the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal and the Leo Frank murder trial, as well as fictional accounts of lawyering, including Kafka's "The Trial" and the movie "The Verdict."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-246) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Practice of law -- United States -- Philosophy
Legal ethics -- United States -- Philosophy
LAW -- Ethics & Professional Responsibility.
Legal ethics -- Philosophy
Practice of law -- Philosophy
Beroepsethiek.
Advocatuur.
Juristen.
Juristes -- Déontologie -- Etats-Unis -- Philosophie.
Droit -- Pratique -- Etats-Unis -- Philosophie.
United States
Form Electronic book
LC no. 97040929
ISBN 9780674043664
0674043669
067400275X
9780674002753