Abstract
‘Are There Causes and Clients Lawyers Should Not Represent?’ This Special Issue centres around a paper Richard L. Abel first presented at a session of the Working Group for Comparative Studies of Legal Professions meeting in Coimbra, Portugal in July 2022, in which he asks and addresses this question. Subsequently, a panel of scholars from both common and civil law jurisdictions responded to the paper at the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law conference in Lund, Sweden in September 2023, where the idea for this Special Issue arose. Our aim with this Special Issue is to open a broader debate on the ethics of client selection.
In his paper, Abel challenges the traditional notion of lawyers' moral non-accountability for their clients and causes rooted in liberal pluralism. He argues that the profession must confront its role in exacerbating three existential crises: climate change, growing inequality and the erosion of liberal democracy. Abel urges lawyers to assess the moral implications of their work, refuse harmful clients and causes and engage in collective action to uphold justice and societal responsibility. He argues that legal ethics must evolve to address these challenges and align the profession with the broader public good. With his paper, Abel speaks to one of the classical topics of legal ethics scholarship, that is, how ordinary morality intersects with professional ethics.
This Special Issue features four articles engaging with Abel’s paper and the wider topic of the ethics of client selection, and concludes with a brief response by Abel. In his paper, W. Bradley Wendel responds by defending a liberal conception of legal ethics, while acknowledging the challenges Abel identifies. Ole Hammerslev examines the challenges of operationalising ethical demands in the legal profession, particularly concerning climate change. Rather than expanding on the critique of the role of lawyers in the existential crises the world is facing today, Iris van Domselaar focuses in her reply on the implications for philosophical legal ethicists. Robert Barrington, Guy Beringer and Georgia Garrod’s paper reports on the work done by a Task Force consisting of lawyers, academics and civil society representatives, that is examining the ethical dilemmas faced by UK law firms representing clients who profit from kleptocracy and large-scale corruption. The Special Issue concludes with a response by Abel to the four papers, in which he emphasises the urgency of the ethics of client selection by pointing to the political context in which the world, and more specifically, the United States, finds itself as this Special Issue goes to press.
Tamara Butter and Trevor Clark
Co-Editors
In his paper, Abel challenges the traditional notion of lawyers' moral non-accountability for their clients and causes rooted in liberal pluralism. He argues that the profession must confront its role in exacerbating three existential crises: climate change, growing inequality and the erosion of liberal democracy. Abel urges lawyers to assess the moral implications of their work, refuse harmful clients and causes and engage in collective action to uphold justice and societal responsibility. He argues that legal ethics must evolve to address these challenges and align the profession with the broader public good. With his paper, Abel speaks to one of the classical topics of legal ethics scholarship, that is, how ordinary morality intersects with professional ethics.
This Special Issue features four articles engaging with Abel’s paper and the wider topic of the ethics of client selection, and concludes with a brief response by Abel. In his paper, W. Bradley Wendel responds by defending a liberal conception of legal ethics, while acknowledging the challenges Abel identifies. Ole Hammerslev examines the challenges of operationalising ethical demands in the legal profession, particularly concerning climate change. Rather than expanding on the critique of the role of lawyers in the existential crises the world is facing today, Iris van Domselaar focuses in her reply on the implications for philosophical legal ethicists. Robert Barrington, Guy Beringer and Georgia Garrod’s paper reports on the work done by a Task Force consisting of lawyers, academics and civil society representatives, that is examining the ethical dilemmas faced by UK law firms representing clients who profit from kleptocracy and large-scale corruption. The Special Issue concludes with a response by Abel to the four papers, in which he emphasises the urgency of the ethics of client selection by pointing to the political context in which the world, and more specifically, the United States, finds itself as this Special Issue goes to press.
Tamara Butter and Trevor Clark
Co-Editors
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Legal Ethics |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 10 Jun 2025 |