A discussion on the neutrality of the lawyer requires some preliminary elucidation. Indeed, as concerns the judge's function, the term “neutrality” is generally used in connection with diverse principles such as: (a) the judge's impartiality with regard to parties, a basic element characterizing the adversary process, according to a tradition dating back to classical liberalism; (b) the judge's neutrality with regard to the law, typical of codified law systems where political choices are entrusted to the legislative power, the judge being a mere interpreter of the law, according to objective criteria; (c) the judge's independence of the other public powers, and thus his autonomy with regard to the aims pursued by the legislative and executive powers.

We will not dwell here on the fact that the principle of the judge's neutrality, according to the liberal tradition, is now undergoing a crisis, in connection with the evolution of modern states. Together with the principle of the judge's neutrality, this same tradition also developed, though in a markedly different sense, the principle of the lawyer's neutrality, which became deeply rooted in the conception of the legal profession; the common inheritance of all liberal states up to the social revolutions of the 20th century. This “neutrality” encompasses different aspects of the legal profession, whose common matrix can be found, on the one hand, in the social composition of lawyers as a class and in the viewing of the legal profession as a “liberal” profession; and on the other, in the characteristics of legal education in the 19th century law schools.