Fighting Fair Legal Ethics for an Adversarial Age

Along with used car dealers and telemarketers, lawyers are considered to be among the least trustworthy of all professionals. If lawyers want more respect, they will have to earn it by reframing their ethical responsibilities. In an original approach to law's moral dilemma, legal theorist Allan C. Hutchinson takes seriously the idea that 'litigation is war'. By drawing an extended analogy with the theory of ethical warfare, he examines the most difficult questions facing practicing lawyers today. Comparing the role of military officers to legal professionals and theories of just peace to legal settlement, Hutchinson outlines a boldly original approach to legal ethics. Fighting Fair's recommendation for a more substantive, honor-based approach to ethics will be a thought-provoking tool for anyone concerned about the moral standing of the legal profession.

1. An opening salvo; 2. The professional project; 3. A theoretical excursion; 4. The standard model; 5. Taking war ethically; 6. In the name of just ends; 7. Fighting fair; 8. Towards a just peace; 9. Not-so-final thoughts.

Allan C. Hutchinson is a Distinguished Research Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and an internationally recognized legal theorist. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including Evolution and the Common Law (2005), The Province of Jurisprudence Democratized (2008) and Is Eating People Wrong? (2010).