ethics and professional responsibility

Professor Daicoff has written an important and pivotal book in "Lawyer. Know Thyself." This book really has two audiences, the legal profession and the rest of us. She has managed to present a very scholarly work in a manner that the lay can easily understand and appreciate. She identifies three critical themes of the American legal system as is presently practiced, i. e. low level of integrity of lawyers and judges, low public opinion of the profession, and low level of job satisfaction. She has presented this work with a very human and distressing vignette of a fictional lawyer in the preface, a very readable body of the book (peppered with lawyer jokes), and voluminous notes at the end of each chapter. These notes are conveniently left out of the main text and allow one to read through without interruption. Yet, the notes reveal not only the depth of the research, which is profound, but also therein is a second book for the educators and scholars. The notes commonly include Professor Daicoff's comments and opinions of the cited work. There is a final chapter suggesting a "cure" for this malady. She suggests a Comprehensive Law Movement encompassing ten vectors of compassionate and humanizing forces.

Why is this book important for "the rest of us?" Not only will the majority of Americans have a direct need for lawyers, but also lawyers dominate our government, influence our businesses, and set a moral level for our society. This is a pivotal time for change in lawyering and "Lawyer, Know Thyself" is a clarion call for all of us.