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The Bodyguards of Lies: Lawyers’ Power and Professional Responsibility

The Bodyguards of Lies: Lawyers’ Power and Professional Responsibility

Author: Christopher Whelan
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781509956999
Published In: October 2022
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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This book uses real-world examples, case studies, and commentary from practitioners to reveal the many and varied strategies American and English lawyers use to protect truth. It shows how they tackle their conflicting duties, and highlights the 'tragic choices' lawyers everywhere routinely make through their 'power of decision'. What emerges are new ways of understanding the critical role lawyers play in society – and their professional responsibilities.

'Truth is so precious it should always be protected by a bodyguard of lies.' Churchill said this about wartime deception plans, but lawyers' clients may think their truth - especially an 'inconvenient truth' - is so precious it too should be protected. Lawyers are 'bodyguards of lies' when they use so-called 'tricks of the trade' not only to keep clients' secrets but to construct a reality that is far from real. But should they? Lawyers have a divided loyalty.

The book presents a unique and fascinating account of what happens when lawyers' duties to clients conflict with their duties to the legal system, and looks in detail at the ethical codes and laws that regulate their conduct.

Part A: Setting the Scene: The Truth About Lies

1. Introduction

2. The Lawyers Role: 'Hired Guns' and/or 'Heroes'?

3. Lawyers: A Divided Loyalty

Part B: Strategies to Protect the Truth

4. Keeping Confidentiality:Tragic Choices

5. Lying with the Law:The Lecture

6. The Inconvenient Truth: Selective Ignorance and Wilful Blindness

7. Lie Sense and Licence to Lie

8. Exploring the Outer Space of Law

9. Creative Compliance: Legal = Ethical

10. Lying with the Sword of Truth and the Dagger of Deceit