Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The historical lineage of Rule 6.03 of the Code of
Professional Responsibility is instructive.1 Thus, the
history, growth and development of legal ethics in
England and other parts of Europe as well as in
America are recorded as narrated hereunder.
In England and other parts of Europe, ethical
standards for lawyers were pervasive in the postmedieval era. The main concern of these standards
was directed towards the litigation conduct of
lawyers, underscoring the central duty of truth and
fairness in litigation as superior to any obligation to
the client.
On the other hand, the forms of lawyer regulation
in the early post-revolutionary America have no
marked difference with those in England and other
parts of Europe. Only three of the traditional core
duties can be fairly characterized as pervasive in the
formal, positive law of the post-revolutionary period:
the duties of litigation fairness, competency and
reasonable fees.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new
form of ethical standards began to guide lawyers in
their practice: the bar associations code of legal
ethics. The bar codes were detailed ethical standards
serving as guide for lawyers.
Definition
Legal Ethics is defined as that branch of moral
science which treats of the duties which a member of
the legal profession owes to the public, to the court,
to his professional brethren, and to his client.2
1 See Andrews, Standards of Conduct for lawyers: An 800year Revolution, 57 SMU I. Rev. 1385 (2004)
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