Professor Andy Boon of Wesminster University has produced an excellent draft report on ‘A model curriculum for legal ethics’ which you can download from John Flood’s site. It’s a joyfully short report and builds on Preparatory Ethics Training for Future Solicitors, Kim Economides and Justine Rogers which recommended that the Law Society “take the lead and encourage the SRA to… make awareness of and commitment to legal values, and the moral context of the law, mandatory in undergraduate law degrees.”
Whilst I have misgivings about making the teaching of ‘ethics’ compulsory, it is difficult to resist the central point that a law degree which does not consider the legal professions and legal services risks disengaging students and the study of law from both the reality of practice and the reality of how law is applied. I agree, in particular, that this kind of contextual study of law is consistent with the purposes of the liberal law degree particularly if, “it takes a critical perspective on the subject”. I also support the broad definition of what is meant by legal ethics:
