ethics and professional responsibility

I rate this book very highly indeed. Whilst it is clearly targeted at lawyers and law students, James Kelley has not gone down the traditional route of producing a legal ethics/professional responsibility casebook - and his book is all the more likely to be read from cover to cover for that.

Kelley notes that while the majority of disciplinary actions are taken against solo practitioners for defalcations and neglect of clients' affairs, these topics do not generally raise difficult ethical issues or lend themselves to law school discussion. Nevertheless, in a series of case studies he does deal with a couple of issues that regularly dog the reputations of private client law firms.

In one he looks at an egregious case of ineffective assistance of counsel. In his comments, Kelley raises a number of telling points about bad representation (one of the defense counsel in this capital murder case was unable to cite a single court decision on criminal law!) and shows how prosecutors and judges connive at bad representation to uphold death penalty verdicts. When the book went to press the 11th Circuit's verdict was still awaited - in Fugate v Head (2001)they upheld the district court's denial of habeas corpus.

In another case study Kelley examines the ethical issues surrounding ambulance chasing - in this case involving a very able lawyer whose business practices were clearly felt to be demeaning by his rivals. References to the film 'Eric Brockovich' in the Comments section adds a pleasing topical spin to the case.

However, the majority of the case studies involve issues faced by in-house counsel or larger commercial law firms. It is too easy to think that falling foul of the Bar Disciplinary Committee is the privilege of the solo or small law firm. Kelley shows that even nationally renowned law firms can get themsleves in a terrible mess when the partners' eyes are on profits rather than ethics. He instances some breathtaking examples of stupidity/cupidity and shows that even when a matter is drawn to the attention of a large firm's in-house ethics committee, sense does not always prevail. All too often the comittees seem to have applied backward chaining logic working from a desired result, i.e. continuing to represent a highly profitable client, and produced an ex post facto rationalization of unethical conduct. On the contrary the firm should have forward chained from the rules and principles and withdrawn.

All the case studies are intrinsically interesting and Kelley does an excellent job of condensing complex facts and highlighting ethical problems. Law professors will find that there is also an excellent teacher's manual available from the publishers that offers considerable added value. All in this is succinct, entertaining and instructive - an uncommon combination of virtues in a book aimed at law schools!