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Vanderbilt Law Review

First Page

39

Abstract

In its public assertions, the legal profession promotes a different model: lawyers are officers of the court in the conduct of their professional, and even their personal," affairs. The organized bar has expressly emphasized this obligation in each of its major codifications of the ethical obligations of the profession, including the American Bar Association's most recent effort, the 1983 Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Lawyers like to refer to themselves as officers of the court. Careful analysis of the role of the lawyer within the adversarial legal system reveals the characterization to be vacuous and unduly self-laudatory. It confuses lawyers and misleads the public. The profession, therefore,should either stop using the officer of the court characterization or give meaning to it. This Article proposes ways to infuse the term with meaning.

Two antagonistic models describe the role of lawyers in our legal system. More familiar to the public, and more comfortable to lawyers, is the model of the lawyer as a "zealous advocate,"1 the devoted champion of the client's cause. Indeed, the image of the lawyer as loyal advocate for the beleaguered client is perpetuated by the bar itself and reinforced by the media, in literature, and in common lore.

In its public assertions, the legal profession promotes a different model: lawyers are officers of the court in the conduct of their professional, and even their personal," affairs. The organized bar has expressly emphasized this obligation in each of its major codifications of the ethical obligations of the profession, including the American Bar Association's most recent effort, the 1983 Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

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