The Ethics Project in Legal Education

This book discusses the teaching of ‘legal ethics’, arguing that the current formal rules governing lawyers are inadequate, as true engagement with ethical issues requires lawyers to exercise judgment, and therefore there is a need to rethink the aims, scope and methodology of ‘legal ethics education. The volume presents the views of a number of internationally renowned legal ethicists, including Brent Cotter and David Chavkin, exploring and questioning the teaching of legal ethics. The contributions examine legal ethics teaching in a range of jurisdictions including the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Hong Kong. A number of contributors discuss design issues that cover a broad field of methods, including simulations, the pervasive use of problem-solving exercises, and real-world experiences, with some of the essays revealing their empirical findings on the effectiveness of these methods and particularly as they affect the students.

The contributions in this volume suggest that "the ethics project in legal education" is increasingly an international one. Even though the strength of commitment by both the profession and the legal academy to "ethics learning" within law schools varies, two fundamental questions confront all who work in this area. First, what is it that we want our students to learn (or, perhaps, in what manner do we want our students to develop) from the teaching of "legal ethics"? Second, how can we create a learning environment that will encourage the nature and quality of learning we think is important?

All the contributors to this volume take a strong stand on the importance of ethical legal practice and the role of law schools in developing students’ capacities in this area. They share a belief in the essential need to encourage law students to engage with the moral dimensions of legal practice. The questions that these scholars grapple with are therefore not of the "should we be teaching this?" variety, but "how might we best to go about doing this, so that our efforts within law schools really make some difference?" Each of the chapters in this volume adds uniquely to our understanding of these matters.