Book Review on "A Modern Legal Ethics"

Profs. Monroe Freedman and Abbe Smith, authors of Understanding Legal Ethics, a book I often recommend to my students, have written a review of Daniel Markovits's A Modern Legal Ethics which will be published in the Michigan Law Review.

Here is an abstract of the review, which is titled, Misunderstanding Lawyers' Ethics: "The authors argue that Daniel Markovits's recently published book, A Modern Legal Ethics, fundamentally misunderstands what lawyers do on behalf of clients in an adversary system, and how lawyers feel about it. Freedman and Smith argue that not only is Markovits mistaken about the widespread unhappiness of lawyers, he is also misguided in pointing to “lying” and “cheating” as the source of unhappiness and “guilt.” Moreover, the authors argue that Markovits’s proposed “ethic” for rescuing the legal profession is superficial wordplay—ironically derivative of the adversarial advocacy he condemns."

Thanks to the Legal Ethics Forum for the information.