ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 examines the second limb of legal ethics, lawyers’ professional obligations and conduct rules, including professional integrity, independence, duties to the law and justice, fiduciary duty, and the public good. The first limb of legal ethics, theoretical legal ethics (TLE), is summarised in this chapter, as it influences lawyers’ professional practice and their professional obligations. It is important to appreciate there is ethical content in lawyers’ professional obligations, and to contrast this with lawyers’ TLE whose focus is the law.
Chapter 2 also introduces law firm corporate lawyers and the tension in their relationship with corporate clients whose in-house lawyers instruct law firms. We need to understand the lawyer-to-client relationship in corporate law practice. This analysis gives a context for the James Hardie case study in Chapter 3.
