Ethics in Practice

Abstract

This essay serves as the introductory chapter of an edited collection, Ethics In Practice (forthcoming, Oxford University Press), which focuses on problems of professional responsibility and professional regulation. The Chapter offers an overview of the structural sources of these problems -- the economic conditions, adversarial premises, and regulatory frameworks that compromise moral commitments. Its central claim is that until the bar addresses the underlying forces that drive professional choices, a wide gap will persist between the ideals and institutions of lawyers' working lives.

Note: An earlier version of this article was announced as Stanford Law School, Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper No. 2. The working paper can be downloaded from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=200728