The business pages tell us corporate leaders, perhaps cowed by reactions to executive pay and the more general desire to rebuild the legitimacy of capitalism, are increasingly interested in ethics. An interesting question is whether this change, if it is real, will permeate into the way lawyers advise their clients.
The conventional view is that commercial lawyers act zealously in their clients’ interests, no matter what the impact is on third parties. This ‘standard conception’ is that they can, and should take any step that advances their clients interest unless it is plainly unlawful or clearly in breach of professional conduct rules. The default position of this standard conception is that if the law in an area is grey, lawyers and clients can exploit uncertainty in their own favour.
