Michele DeStefano has a great post up over at the Legal Whiteboard that explores the "good, bad, and ugly" of the term "legal ethics." Check it out.
Picking up on Michele's post, I'm curious as to how readers of this blog characterize their scholarship. Here's a short poll.
You can see the results here.
Great question. Cynthia Godsoe recently posted on a similar topic at Prawfsblawg.
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2012/08/whats-in-a-name.html
Posted by: John Steele | August 30, 2012 at 10:11 PM
From 1975 (Lawyers' Ethics in an Adversary System) to the present (Understanding Lawyers' Ethics), I have called it none of the above.
Posted by: Monroe Freedman | August 31, 2012 at 07:25 AM
Monroe, when someone asks you what you write about, what do you say? Lawyers' ethics?
Posted by: Andrew Perlman | August 31, 2012 at 09:01 AM
Yes, always. See, e.g., Misunderstanding Lawyers’ Ethics, 108 Mich. L. Rev. 925 (2010) (with Abbe Smith) (a review of Markovits' book, which has "Legal Ethics" in it's title).
Posted by: Monroe Freedman | August 31, 2012 at 09:35 AM
Andy, How do you answer when a non-lawyer asks you what you teach?
Posted by: Monroe Freedman | September 01, 2012 at 11:03 AM
Monroe, I typically say that I write about "legal ethics." I'm not satisfied with the label, but I don't think there is a single phrase that can be fully accurate.
Conceptually, I see some benefit in using your phrase "lawyers' ethics," but the distinction between that phrase and "legal ethics" is probably lost on most non-lawyers (and perhaps most lawyers).
Posted by: Andrew Perlman | September 01, 2012 at 10:47 PM
Monroe Freedman
Not just conceptually, but grammatically. "Legal" means pertaining to law. "Legal ethics" might more accurately be the study of the ethicalness or morality of laws or of the legal system.
"Lawyers' ethics" means the ethics of lawyers, which, as the much-abused phrase "role differentiation" expresses, is what makes our subject distinct from others.
I
Posted by: Monroe Freedman | September 02, 2012 at 07:46 AM
And no one has ever asked me what Lawyers' Ethics means.
More important, Andy, could we simplify the verification for posting a comment? It's driving me mad (as some may have noticed).
Posted by: Monroe Freedman | September 02, 2012 at 10:13 AM
Let me see what I can do about the verification process. It is designed to prevent spam comments, and I don't know if typepad has other options for preventing the spamming.
Posted by: Andrew Perlman | September 02, 2012 at 11:43 AM
Monroe,
I just removed the authentication feature. We'll see if the spamming increases noticeably. If it doesn't, we'll leave it off. But if it does, we'll have to turn it back on. There is a button you can push to generate new codes if you can't read the authentication codes. (I have trouble reading them myself sometimes.)
Andy
Posted by: Andrew Perlman | September 02, 2012 at 11:47 AM
Thank you, Andy.
Posted by: Monroe Freedman | September 02, 2012 at 05:06 PM