The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Carol M. Langford (Author) "On the evening of August 9, 1973, just as Frank Armani was sitting down to dinner with his family, he received a phone call that..." (more)
Key Phrases: adversary theorem, secret settlements, false defense, New York, Supreme Court, Robert Garrow (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

These are perilous times for America's lawyers--and for Americans who rely on lawyers. Blatant abuses of power and trust, reckless ethical misconduct, grossly unjust billing practices, and dishonesty disguised as client confidentiality have all undermined the credibility of lawyers and imperiled the authority of the legal system. In the court of public opinion, many lawyers these days are more culpable than the criminals they defend and prosecute.

Is the public right? In this eye-opening, incisive book, Richard Zitrin and Carol Langford, two practicing lawyers and distinguished law professors, shine a penetrating light on one of the most critical issues now confronting our judicial system: legal ethics. Pick up any newspaper and you will no doubt see a heated debate between lawyers who view certain legal behavior as "ethical" and average citizens who judge that same conduct in terms of "morality." Through in-depth analysis and case studies of actual trials ranging from murder to class action suits, Zitrin and Langford go behind the headlines to investigate why lawyers behave the way they do--and what impact that behavior has on our legal system. The result is a stunningly lucid exploration of law as it is practiced in America today--and a cogent, detailed, ground-breaking program for legal reform.

Zitrin and Langford begin with a frank and fascinating discussion of a harrowing criminal case to illustrate why a defense lawyer's zealous advocacy is necessary not just to protect reprehensible clients but to ensure many of the freedoms we all enjoy. But problems arise when that same unfettered zeal is applied to the civil arena, where the power and money of large corporations can jeopardize the ordinary citizen's access to justice.

Zitrin and Langford then probe the other major legal issues of our day, including how large multinational law firms use prolonged, expensive "discovery wars" to win the majority of cases before they ever come to trial--or to the public's attention; how lawyers have turned trials into legal theater in which race, sex, and "spin" replace evidence, facts, and truth; and how lawyers have managed to turn class action suits into massive money-makers--for themselves.

But it doesn't have to be this way. In the book's powerful final chapter, Zitrin and Langford outline a concrete, workable program for changing the way law is practiced while retaining the vision and intent of the Founding Fathers. Timely, provocative, and absolutely mesmerizing, The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer is essential reading for anyone who cares about truth and justice in our society.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 274 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (April 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345433149
• ISBN-13: 978-0345433145
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #853,719 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More questions than answers, August 13, 2001

By	Julian P Killingley (Wakefield, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer: Truth, Justice, Power, and Greed (Paperback)

I am afraid that I don't share other reviewers' enthusiasm for this book. Others have noted that it is rather short on solutions to the problems that it outlines. However, it seems to me that this book doesn't know which audience it is aimed at.

My instincts tell me that it is aimed at the general public - not least because of the breezy, senasationalist tone it adopts. There's an awful lot of scaremongering of the "Gee - isn't it awful what these lawyers are doing?" variety. Indeed, I don't take issue with the factual accuracy of the behaviors instanced by the authors. However, my gripe is that the authors do not put these acts in proportion - the lay reader will come away from this book without any idea at all as to how common are these practices that the authors catalog.

The reputation of the legal profession in the United States is at a pretty low ebb. This book will do nothing to improve public perceptions of it. I do not claim that all is well and the public has nothing to worry about - however, the public does deserve to know just how widespread are the practices that the authors describe. The subtitle for this book might just as well be "lawyers are bad for your wealth" yet the public cannot do without legal services. We can expect those who read this book to view their visit to a lawyer's office with as much enthusiasm as a visit to a dentist or a proctologist. Frankly I think the public deserve to be better informed than this on the issues raised by this book.

Lawyers will find little surprising here - other than the impression that the temple of the law is falling about heads and we know nothing, or care nothing, about it. Zitrin and Langford produced a useful casebook on legal ethics - although not as good as Professor Rhode's - but their legal scholarship has taken second place to legal journalism with this book. The book is short but its scope is all encompassing. The inevitable result is a superficial treatment of important issues and a general lack of reflective insight.

If lay or professional readers want to know just how thought provoking and readable a good reflection on the "state of the profession" can be, I urge them to read Michael H Trotters's "Profit and the Practice of Law: What's happened to the legal profession?" and compare that with Part Two of this book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear, engrossing, and important commentary on lawyering., November 5, 1999

By A Customer

I am a paralegal, and have worked in the legal field for 23 years. I could not put this book down. I have been talking about it since I turned the pages of the first chapter. I recommend it to everyone; I plan to read it again, and when it is not in use, I place it in plain sight of the lawyers with whom I work. Langford and Zitrin have written an important commentary about the practice of law that is easy reading for non-lawyers without being condescending. But their book should be required reading for every lawyer. It is as if someone finally mentioned the elephant in the center of the room.

How did the profession get this far afield? Clients are served less and less while more lawyers are churned out of law schools, and competition is fierce. Money talks; clients at the lower end of the economic scale get less effective counsel or simply try to solve problems without representation. The legal profession has evolved into a business to survive; but, along the way, its vision has deteriorated with regard to justice, public service, and what is morally right.

The fact pattern presented at the beginning of each chapter had me guessing about its outcome as I read on regarding actual, related cases. The anecdotal evidence of injustice and moral dilemma is overwhelming. These are not just occasional news items. They are things that happen every day to lawyers and ordinary people.

I loved their straightfoward and common sense proposals for solutions to make the practice of law better for everyone involved. If only the legal profession, which, as they point out, largely regulates itself, had the courage to implement them.

Just read it, okay?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Catalog of all the Ethical Problems; Short on Solutions, October 5, 1999

By	suzy murray (Rancho Murieta, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Zitrin and Langford challenge those in the legal profession to aspire towards a higher standard than the billable hour. They do well at illustrating the ethical conflicts lawyers face daily with examples from cases that stretch the limits of honest representation. In the end, however, attorneys looking for ethical guidance or for ways out of the ethical dilemmas and conflicts Zitrin and Langford present, will be a little disappointed as the authors only catalog the extremes and the abuses without ever offering solutions; these extremes and abuses are the same cases and examples lawyers were presented with in law school and agonized over in ethics courses. A young member of the profession looking for some guidance from these experienced attorneys will unfortunately find no guidance forthcoming, so in this respect, Zitgrin and Langford do no more than cast stones. Yet the book is extremely valuable as it forces the attorney to return to those law school hypotheticals and ethics dilemmas and wrestle with them once again, this time from the perspective of one who has experienced the pressures to pad the timesheet, to withhold the discovery request, and to justify what most folks would call "lies" as zealous representation. Zitrin and Langford also illustrate that there is often a huge gap between what is ethical and what is moral, and for these reasons, this book should be taught in the law schools along with the Model Rules and the case books.