INTRODUCTION

Contemporary legal practice has much to recommend it. The practice of law can involve intellectually stimulating work, engagement with issues that are important to society and to individual clients, opportunities for problem solving, career-long learning and development, and much more. But legal practice also has its challenges. Aspects of the work can be repetitive, structural changes in the profession have put pressure on firms and attorneys, and new technologies are changing the ways law is practised. While most lawyers report being satisfied in their work, others are dissatisfied. And many, while satisfied overall, are unhappy with particular aspects of the profession. Some are concerned in particular about the effects of the modern practice environment on attorney wellbeing. Others are concerned about the state of ethics and professionalism in the practice of law. These two concerns are related– attorney wellbeing has implications for legal ethics, ethics have implications for attorney wellbeing, and there are a number of aspects of the profession that have implications for both.

ETHICS AND WELLBEING

ETHICS AND PROFESSIONALISM

Legal practice can present difficult ethical challenges for lawyers. The legal environment in which these challenges are faced is often defined by complex and ambiguous ethical rules and standards, agency relationships, and the ethos of an adversarial system. Modern lawyers, moreover, practise in a world of financial and temporal pressures, new billing models, changing firm structures, increasing globalisation, and advances in technology. Issues of appropriate disclosure, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, candour and deception, communication, billing, competence, and more come up across practice settings. Whether a lawyer is in private practice or public service, a member of a large firm or in solo practice, doing litigation or transactional work, practising in the civil or criminal arena, or working as a judge, ethical issues pervade the work of lawyers.

Some ethical issues involve violations of the formal disciplinary rules of the profession and may or may not manifest in formal complaints. A survey by the American Bar Association found that 108,902 ethics complaints were made against US lawyers in 2016.