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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Cause lawyer

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Sensational Reports: The Ethical Duty Of Cause Lawyers To Be Competent In Public Advocacy, Deborah J. Cantrell Jan 2007

Sensational Reports: The Ethical Duty Of Cause Lawyers To Be Competent In Public Advocacy, Deborah J. Cantrell

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This article argues that cause lawyers - those lawyers whose primary focus is on social change rather than on for-profit client-based work - have an ethical responsibility to be competent in public advocacy. That responsibility stems from a cause lawyer's commitment to the principles embodied in the particular social movement in which the lawyer is acting. It is reinforced by the requirement of competency under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. To illustrate the contours of a competent public advocacy strategy, the article highlights two cause lawyering organizations, Legal Momentum and the Institute for Justice, and considers how each organization …


The Ethics Of Cause Lawyering: An Examination Of Criminal Defense Lawyers As Cause Lawyers, Margareth Etienne Mar 2005

The Ethics Of Cause Lawyering: An Examination Of Criminal Defense Lawyers As Cause Lawyers, Margareth Etienne

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Criminal defense attorneys are often motivated by an intricate set of moral and ideological principles that belie their reputations as amoral (if not immoral) “hired guns” who would do anything to get their guilty clients off. Using empirical data from interviews with forty criminal defense attorneys I explore the motivations that inform their decisions to enter the field of criminal defense and the values that influence the manner in which they do their jobs. I conclude that many criminal defense attorneys are in fact cause lawyers who are committed to individual clients but also the “cause” of legal reform in …