Legal Journalism Avoids Legal Ethics
what ethics?Reporter >Wendy Leibowitz has some strong and well-justified words about legal ethics and how little attention legal journalism gives to them, at Jurist’s group weblog Law Reporting. (”coverage of legal ethics, and shame“, 02-03-04) Wendy is reacting to yesterday’s NYT article, In a Complex World, Even Lawyers Need Lawyers, which describes the growing number of law firms employing in-house general counsel to help handle ethics issues, such as those that arise when taking on a new client whose interests may conflict with a current client.
Wendy points out:
Now, once upon a time, say, ten years ago, the idea of representing someone who wants to sue an existing firm client would have been unthinkable. The conflict of interest was too clear — the ethical rules require an undivided duty of loyalty to your client. I’m surprised that the article doesn’t mention that, or even touch base with a legal ethics pontificator who would point that out.
With greed more persuasive than ethics, the job of the law firm general counsel is to ”show us how we can represent both parties to a lawsuit without getting sued.” Wendy concludes that the article:
[S]hows that ethical standards in the case of private law firms have dropped dramatically, and not to the benefit of the client, but solely to benefit the profits of the law firm. I hope that legal journalists will point this out.
But coverage of legal ethics is shamefully scanty and haphazard. Most people assume that legal journalism just means coverage of litigation, and so . . . [w]hile the celebrities get carpet-bomb coverage, the real practices that disadvantage ordinary clients are kept far from view. [emphasis added]
Wendy’s weblog-mate Jack Ayers has a few choice words, too, on the topic. Thanks to Howard Bashman for directing me over to this excellent weblog, where “Legal journalists and law professors discuss law and the media.“
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