Inside Lawyers' Ethics

the long version

Legal ethics is often described as an oxymoron or contradiction in terms - lay people find the concept amusing and lawyers can find ethics impossible. The best lawyers are those who have come to grips with their own values and actively seek to improve their ethical practise. This book is designed to help law students and new lawyers understand and modify their own ethical priorities, not just because this knowledge makes it easier to practise law and earn an income, but because self-aware, ethical legal practice is right and feels better than anything else. Packed with case studies of ethical scandals and dilemmas from real life legal practice in Australia, each chapter delves into the most difficult issues lawyers face. From lawyers' part in corporate fraud to the ethics of time-based billing, Parker and Evans expose the values that underlie current practice and set out the alternatives ethical lawyers might follow.