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## Abstract The law governing lawyers is a relatively young field, emerging from the organized bar’s efforts to preserve the autonomy of the profession from external regulation. The field also separated itself from aspirational ideals and ethical principles, becoming firmly established as a subject to be taught in law schools following the revelation of the participation of lawyers in the Watergate scandal. The history of the profession’s official pronouncements on ethics shows an evolution in the subject from aspirational statements of best practices to a statute-like set of enforceable legal rules. While some scholars criticized the “demoralization” of legal ethics, this chapter contends that what actually happened is the development of an area of law with its own characteristic normative perspective on the legal profession. Borrowing from Restatement Reporter Charles Wolfram’s history of the project, the chapter sees the Restatement as a response to a shift in the organized bar’s own governing ideology, from serving as guardians of the law to purely private guardians of client interests. The Restatement certainly does not envision lawyers as having robust, freestanding duties as

Author

W. Bradley Wendel

Publisher

Oxford University PressNew York

Published

2023

Language

EN

ISBN

9780197685372

Subjects

History, Law