The Lawyer's Perspective

Andrew B. Ayers, Office of the Solicitor General of New York

Abstract

Legal ethicists have lately debated whether legal ethics should be approached from a “first-personal” perspective—that is, the perspective of an individual moral agent. Most writers have understood the first-personal perspective as a self-directed or self-interested one. The debate has centered on whether lawyers’ interest in their own well-being or integrity is a matter of ethical interest. This article argues that the understanding on which the debate is based is too narrow.

The first-personal perspective should be understood to include the question of what reasons for action lawyers must consider in their ethical decision-making. So understood, it helps us avoid the common mistake of treating contingent reasons as irrelevant. It also sheds light on ethical collective action problems—both how they arise and how to get out of them. And it is the perspective from which we must proceed if we are to develop an account of what is intrinsically valuable in lawyering.