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What Is A Lawyer? A Reconstruction Of The Lawyer As An Officer Of The Court, Deborah M. Hussey Freeland

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

This paper engages with the central question in legal ethics concerning the lawyer’s role, analyzing this fundamental question in terms of professional identity. Literature in this debate frames the lawyer either as a professional who exists entirely to serve her client (the “standard conception”), or as a professional whose primary duties are to the legal system. I reposit and examine the lawyer’s professional identity as an officer of the court—an identity marginalized by those who favor the standard conception—noting that “standard conception” was coined to draw attention to a supplanting threat to legal professionalism. Providing a uniquely detailed examination of …