Lawyers and Justice

An Ethical Study

David Luban

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780691022901
  9780691077840
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691187556
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

The law, Holmes said, is no brooding omnipresence in the sky. "If that is true," writes David Luban, "it is because we encounter the legal system in the form of flesh-and-blood human beings: the police if we are unlucky, but for the (marginally) luckier majority, the lawyers." For practical purposes, the lawyers are the law. In this comprehensive study of legal ethics, Luban examines the conflict between common morality and the lawyer's "role morality" under the adversary system and how this conflict becomes a social and political problem for a community.


Using real examples and drawing extensively on case law, he develops a systematic philosophical treatment of the problem of role morality in legal practice. He then applies the argument to the problem of confidentiality, outlines an affordable system of legal services for the poor, and provides an in-depth philosophical treatment of ethical problems in public interest law.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• A NOTE TO THE READER
• PART I. PROBLEMS OF CONSCIENCE: TRADE IDIOMS AND MORAL IDIOMS
• PART II. PROBLEMS OF CONSCIENCE: KEEPING CONFIDENCES
• PART III. PROBLEMS OF JUSTICE: LEGAL AID
• PART IV. THE PEOPLE'S LAWYER AND DEMOCRATIC IDEALS
• APPENDIX 1: HOW STANDARD IS THE STANDARD CONCEPTION?
• APPENDIX 2: AN ARGUMENT AGAINST INNUMERATE ETHICS
• TABLE OF CASES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX