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Legal Ethics Versus Political Practices: The Application Of The Rules Of Professional Conduct To Lawyer-Politicians, Andrew Martin
Legal Ethics Versus Political Practices: The Application Of The Rules Of Professional Conduct To Lawyer-Politicians, Andrew Martin
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Canadian legal ethics has paid little attention to how the rules of professional conduct for lawyers apply to lawyer-politicians – that is, politicians who happen to be lawyers. This article addresses this issue with reference to what Canadian case law and commentary do exist, supplemented by more plentiful American materials. It proposes a distinction between conduct that is politically expedient and conduct in which lawyer-politicians’ duties as lawyers come into apparent conflict with their duties of office. Canadian case law reveals three conflicting approaches to this latter category: that the duties of a lawyer prevail, that the duties of a …
Service To The Nation: A Living Legal Value For Justice Lawyers In Canada, Josh Wilner
Service To The Nation: A Living Legal Value For Justice Lawyers In Canada, Josh Wilner
Dalhousie Law Journal
Lawyers working within a living government require a living ethics, an approach to ethics that accounts for their day-to-day professional lives within the Department of Justice Canada. There are different archetypes of Justice lawyers, and thus a living ethics is also an ethics of place, one which is sensitive to the government institutions within and for which lawyers work and the functions they accomplish. The focus of this paper, which employs a virtue ethics methodology, is primarily civil litigators. Distinguishing between values (enduring beliefs that influence action) and ethics (the application of values in practice), the paper proposes "service to …
Fitness For Purpose: Mandatory Continuing Legal Ethics Education For Lawyers, Jocelyn Downie, Richard Devlin
Fitness For Purpose: Mandatory Continuing Legal Ethics Education For Lawyers, Jocelyn Downie, Richard Devlin
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
The authors argue that if we want lawyers to be fit for the purpose of practicing law, and law societies to be fit for the purpose of regulating in the public interest, then it is incumbent upon the Canadian legal profession to adopt programmes of compulsory legal ethics education (CLEE). In support of this argument the authors: provide several reasons why Canadians might be concerned about the ethical fitness of lawyers and law societies; analyse several arguments both in supporting and resisting CLEE; suggest several strategies for overcoming the ethical indolence of the legal profession; and draw inspiration from recent …