Recent work in legal ethics has raised the question of whether lawyers, in performing certain kinds of actions otherwise criticizable on moral grounds, can escape such criticism by appealing to the role they occupy in the legal system. Such actions include but are not limited to “gray-mailing”, making truthful opposing witnesses look like liars, defending criminals believed to be guilty, and defeating just claims on technicalities. Often, the question has turned on whether the adversary system of which lawyers are members is itself a morally worthy system. And depending upon the answer to this question are the answers to a number of related questions. Of these, the most widely discussed is whether and to what extent a lawyer should respect a client’s confidences.