Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Should A Christian Lawyer Sign Up For Simon's Practice Of Justice?, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

In The Practice of Justice, Professor William H. Simon describes justice in a way that differs from the way the Bible describes justice. The big difference is not so much what justice requires (although there is some difference there) as (i) how people decide what justice requires, and (ii) who the "people" are who decide what justice requires. Some of us Christians claim to understand "justice" as the Bible understands it. It may make a difference that, for biblical people, "justice" is righteousness, and righteousness, the Torah teaches, and Rabbi Hillel teaches, and Rabbi Jesus teaches, is practice following upon …

The Legal Ethics Of Radical Individualism, Thomas Shaffer

Journal Articles

Most of what American lawyers and law professors call legal ethics is not ethics. Legal ethics has come to be rules that appeal to sanction, and not the lawyer’s conscience. This Article analyzes the ethical quandary arising from modern ethics, and presents an assessment of the ethics of radical individualism in terms of the religious tradition’s influence on legal ethics.

Christian Theories Of Professional Responsibility, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Consideration of the religious and moral significance of legal practice is a subject to which too little attention has been paid in American legal education. Louis M. Brown has been one of those few engaged in the teaching of law who has explored the ethical components of lawyering; his example has been a great influence on many of us. It seems appropriate, therefore, in this tribute to Louis M. Brown, to consider the role which Christian values may play in producing lawyers who are well-developed in interpersonal as in professional skills.

This essay will seek to relate Christian values to …