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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN num: 9780449006719
ISBN number: 0449006719
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: September 05, 2000
Publishing house: Ballantine Books
Release Date: September 05, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 102757
Studio: Ballantine Books
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These are perilous times for Americans who need acess to the legal system. Too many lawyers blatantly abuse power and trust, engage in reckless ethical misconduct, grossly unjust billing practices, and dishonesty disguised as client protection. All this has undermined the credibility of lawyers and the authority of the legal system. In the court of public opinion, many lawyers these days are guiltier than the criminals or giant corporations they defend.
Is the public right? In this eye-opening, incisive book, Richard Zitrin and Carol Langford, two practicing lawyers and distinguished law professors, shine a penetrating light on the question everyone is asking: Why do lawyers behave the way they do? All across the country, lawyers view certain behavior as 'ethical' while average citizens judge that same conduct 'immoral.' Now, with expert analysis of actual cases ranging from murder to class action suits, Zitrin and Langford investigate lawyers' behavior and its impact on our legal system. The result is a stunningly clear-eyed exploration of law as it is practiced in America today--and a cogent, groundbreaking program for legal reform.
Amazon.com Review:
We have all heard the derogatory jokes comparing lawyers to slimy, venomous invertebrates. And we have laughed. On the scale of public contempt, the legal profession ranks somewhere between tabloid journalists and telemarketers. What should be a good and honorable vocation is collectively vilified as devious and mercenary. In The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer, Richard Zitrin and Carol M. Langford try to explain legal ethics to nonlawyers. While they provide a vigorous defense of the American system of justice, they also note the ethical catastrophes caused by the excesses of the adversarial process.
Lawyers are not paid to defend 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way,' the authors note; they are paid to defend their clients, and the duty of zealous advocacy sometimes pushes lawyers to work at the margins of decency. Some lawyers straddle the ethical line, or skip back and forth with impunity; others dive headlong over the edge and never return. Clients want to hire successful lawyers, of course, and the lawyers who are successful are too often the ones who are willing to ignore the boundaries of professional responsibility. The ethics of the profession seem to be defined by whatever the slickest can get away with. Nice lawyers finish last in this race to the bottom, and the victors gladly suffer the slings and arrows of popular opinion as they amass outrageous billable hours. The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer is a sweeping overview of the ethical dilemmas that face every member of the legal profession every day--whether they are a criminal defense lawyer, personal injury attorney, corporate in-house counsel, or junior associate at a 500-lawyer megafirm. The authors also provide a frank assessment of the shortcomings of the entire U.S. judicial system, from the law schools to the courtrooms, and what can be done to remedy the situation. --Tim Hogan
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Rated by buyers -
Intended for popular consumption, Zitrin & Langford provide a riveting, accessible exploration of the ethical ambiguities posed by the adversary theorem in legal practice.
The adversary theorem, the core of American legal practice, asserts that zealous advocacy on behalf of clients will serve the ultimate cause of justice even if lawyers engage in otherwise questionable behavior because the competition between lawyers who engage in the same practices ensures that justice will ultimately prevail.
Folks looking to denounce lawyers lightly will find little sympathy for lawyers by reading the cases in this book. Rather than consider the implications of the billable hours or the justifications for Frank Armani's interpretation of confidentiality, they'll rush to denounce. It's always easy to pre-judge. That's why lawyers exist.
Zitrin & Langford are less interested in denouncing the adversary theorem than in examining its effect in the real world. The proposals they offer mesh with developments that occurred after their book. The American Bar Association revised its model rules in 2002. Harvard Law School added a pro bono requirement for all students. Law firms tout their pro bono service prominently on their websites, sometimes more prominently than they tout their client list.
Zitrin & Langford add considerably to serious discusion about the application of ethics to legal practice - a perpetual discusion that will last so long as humans disagree.
Rated by buyers -
The only moral compass I've seen yet is whether or not they can get away with justifying their acts with regard to clients. Much of that depends upon the nature of their confidence and where they sit in the "pecking" order of human beings, a.k.a., to whom they were married (denoting family power), where they went to school (usually denoting family power), and what firm they are with (often denoting family power), or who they know (as a result of family power). Therefore, the ethics displayed say a lot more about who's who in family power than about the topic of morality - since it is family power not God who governs the universe. For example, if you come from the right family, you can be a judge, and many have, or even a President, provided you are not a woman. This has been the history for most professions since the nation was founded.
Rated by buyers 
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I am afraid that I don't share other reviewers' enthusiasm for this book. Others have noted that it is rather short on solutions to the problems that it outlines. However, it seems to me that this book doesn't know which audience it is aimed at.
My instincts tell me that it is aimed at the general public - not least because of the breezy, senasationalist tone it adopts. There's an awful lot of scaremongering of the "Gee - isn't it awful what these lawyers are doing?" variety. Indeed, I don't take issue with the factual accuracy of the behaviors instanced by the authors. However, my gripe is that the authors do not put these acts in proportion - the lay reader will come away from this book without any idea at all as to how common are these practices that the authors catalog.
The reputation of the legal profession in the United States is at a pretty low ebb. This book will do nothing to improve public perceptions of it. I do not claim that all is well and the public has nothing to worry about - however, the public does deserve to know just how widespread are the practices that the authors describe. The subtitle for this book might just as well be "lawyers are bad for your wealth" yet the public cannot do without legal services. We can expect those who read this book to view their visit to a lawyer's office with as much enthusiasm as a visit to a dentist or a proctologist. Frankly I think the public deserve to be better informed than this on the issues raised by this book.
Lawyers will find little surprising here - other than the impression that the temple of the law is falling about heads and we know nothing, or care nothing, about it. Zitrin and Langford produced a useful casebook on legal ethics - although not as good as Professor Rhode's - but their legal scholarship has taken second place to legal journalism with this book. The book is short but its scope is all encompassing. The inevitable result is a superficial treatment of important issues and a general lack of reflective insight.
If lay or professional readers want to know just how thought provoking and readable a good reflection on the "state of the profession" can be, I urge them to read Michael H Trotters's "Profit and the Practice of Law: What's happened to the legal profession?" and compare that with Part Two of this book.
Rated by buyers 
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Richard Zitrin and Carol Langford have written here a book that will not only introduce the law student to the sleazier side of law practice, but also warn the "law consumer" what to watch out for (or perhaps what to look for by way of "zealous representation").
But this is not only a catalogue of egregiously unethical practices by real-world lawyers. It also contains interesting tidbits of great relevance to those who want to know what's wrong with the legal profession.
(For example, here's a point libertarians will enjoy. Lawyers once tried to get around the silly practice of accounting for everything in "billable hours" by settling on standard fees for certain common legal tasks. What stopped them? Antitrust law. It seems adopting industry-standard fees is a form of collusion in restraint of trade. Thank heavens; the current system is _ever_ so much better.)
Not long on solutions, this volume is still a solid overview of the sort of nonsense engendered by the adversarial system. It's also a list of good reasons to look into alternative dispute resolution the subsequent time _you_ have a legal problem.
For law students, I'd personally recommend supplementing it with any or all of the following: Mary Ann Glendon's _A Nation Under Lawyers_; Deborah Rhode's _In the Interests of Justice_; and Philip Howard's _The Death of Common Sense_.
Rated by buyers -
I am a paralegal, and have worked in the legal field for 23 years. I could not put this book down. I have been talking about it since I turned the pages of the very first chapter. I recommend it to everyone; I plan to read it again, and when it is not in use, I place it in plain sight of the lawyers with whom I work. Langford and Zitrin have written an important commentary about the practice of law that is easy reading for non-lawyers without being condescending. But their book should be required reading for every lawyer. It is as if someone finally mentioned the elephant in the center of the room.
How did the profession get this far afield? Clients are served less and less while more lawyers are churned out of law schools, and competition is fierce. Money talks; clients at the lower end of the economic scale get less effective counsel or simply try to solve problems without representation. The legal profession has evolved into a business to survive; but, along the way, its vision has deteriorated with regard to justice, public service, and what is morally right.
The fact pattern presented at the beginning of each chapter had me guessing about its outcome as I read on regarding actual, related cases. The anecdotal evidence of injustice and moral dilemma is overwhelming. These are not just occasional news items. They are things that happen every day to lawyers and ordinary people.
I loved their straightfoward and common sense proposals for solutions to make the practice of law better for everyone involved. If only the legal profession, which, as they point out, largely regulates itself, had the courage to implement them.
Just read it, okay?
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