Subjects:

Professional Conduct and Ethics

This is the second edition of a path-breaking text which successfully maps the complex regulatory environment in which the legal profession in England and Wales operates in the twenty-first century. In it the authors offer a critical overview of how the professional ethic of lawyers has been constructed and where its sources of ideals, organisation, power and culture are located.

It also examines the professional governance structures which operate today, in particular how regulation, discipline and education interact, and with what success. Detailed chapters examine the duties owed to clients (conflicts of interest, confidentiality, fees and costs, diligence) and to others (for instance the profession and society) and the notion of public service is critically examined. A final part of the book looks at dispute settlement (litigation, negotiation, advocacy and alternative dispute settlement).

The second edition both revises and updates the first edition in the light of the very considerable number of changes in the law, the codes and the policies of the government and the professions that have occurred since the first edition.

Once again the authors illuminate the book with their quest for guiding principles against which the suitability and efficacy of structures and codes which have existed for decades, even centuries, can be judged, and ask whether the professions are suitably regulated in an era of sustained and continuous change.