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Full-Text Articles in Legal Profession
Busting The Professional Trust: A Comment On William Simon’S Ladd Lecture, W. Bradley Wendel
Busting The Professional Trust: A Comment On William Simon’S Ladd Lecture, W. Bradley Wendel
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
It is truly an honor to be asked to Comment on the work of William Simon, one of the scholars who has done the most to contribute to the reputation of legal ethics as a field with intellectual rigor and depth, as well as one with significant implications for legal theory generally. The power of his critical faculties is unmatched: the platitudes offered by the organized bar in defense of the dominant view of legal ethics lie in tatters after the sustained assault in the first three chapters of The Practice of Justice. In fact, it can be difficult …
The Zealous Advocacy Of Justice In A Less Than Ideal Legal World, Robin West
The Zealous Advocacy Of Justice In A Less Than Ideal Legal World, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In The Practice of Justice, William Simon addresses a widely recognized dilemma -- the moral degradation of the legal profession that seems to be the unpleasant by-product of an adversarial system of resolving disputes -- with a bold claim: Lawyers involved in either the representation of private rights or the public interest should be zealous advocates of justice, rather than their clients' interests. If lawyers were to do what this reorientation of their basic identity would dictate -- that is, if lawyers were to zealously pursue justice according to law, rather than zealously pursue through all marginally lawful means whatever …