1
Legal Ethics and Morality
Law is a noble profession, perhaps the noblest of them all. With the study of law, the typical
lawyer is placed on the crux of defending all elements of morality as well as ethics. The lawyer is
almost always at the turning point of the means to justice and grasps a key stake hold in the legal
system. Legal systems are, indeed, expected to operate using high standards of transparency, both
moral and ethical. “The Dominant View posits that lawyers should be amoral facilitators who give
their clients access to the public good of law unfettered by the lawyer’s own moral values”
. It is,
in light of this, that this particular view draws advocates more to the side of battling the most
instrumentalist outset of regulations conceivably to oblige the client’s concern, and ethically
responsible for whatsoever indemnities this outset conveys to third parties or even the legal
context.
Shaffer argues that there is almost always a certain element of morality as well as ethics in
conversations about the law. The ideas in law statements usually back themselves up on obligations
and always seek the coercion of the state. In Shaffer’s understanding, what in the world could be
more moral than that?
Reliability, honesty, and integrity are more often than not milestones in
considering whether one is fit to hold the position of an attorney. Bearing in mind the fact that a
lawyer's services are usually intellectual, and the further fact that one uses his learned skills to
provide help to clients who are at a disadvantaged position and therefore vulnerable, trust is mostly
usually key in such relationships and the non-existence of extraordinarily high levels of morality
and ethics would ensure the successful downfall of a number of people in the society
. Therefore,
to say, lawyers hold a certain power of the common man.
David B. Wilkins, In Defense of Law and Morality: Why Lawyers Should Have a Prima Facie Duty to Obey the
Law, 38 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 269 (1996), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol38/ iss1/14 p. 273.
Shaffer 1979 Notre Dame Law 232.
Kris Dobie, The Ethical Role of Lawyers, (The Ethics Institute).
