Moral Vision and Professional Decisions The Changing Values of Women and Men Lawyers

What does it mean today to 'think like a lawyer'? Drawing on extensive interviews with men and women attorneys, the authors explore how moral reasoning affects lawyers' understanding of justice and their own role in promoting it. This examination of personal and institutional imperatives in the legal profession, illustrated with quotations from the lawyers themselves, raises questions that transcend traditional discussions of legal ethics. The authors examine: the relationship between gender and patterns of moral thinking; the ways that personal morality affects public and professional responsibility; the legal system's response to social changes in public ethics and in women's roles. In conclusion the authors offer suggestions for constructive changes in legal education and the code of professional ethics to foster morally responsive democracy. All those concerned with moral reasoning, gender roles, and the evolution of the legal system will find this stimulating and timely reading.

Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Care and rights: two ways of perceiving the world; 2. The lawyer's role: partisanship, neutrality and moral distance; 3. Personal morality: the orientation of lawyers toward rights and care; 4. Personal morality and attorney role: changing perceptions of professional obligation; 5. Women lawyers: archetype and alternatives; 6. Toward a more morally responsive advocate; Appendices; Notes; Bibliography; Index.