This is a course in applied legal ethics and professional responsibility. It examines the different values, rules and regulations that affect legal practice. Students will learn to: identify the values, rules and norms that lawyers should apply in practice; judge what roles lawyers do play in society and the justice system, and what roles lawyers ought to play; and identify and begin to develop the skills necessary for ethical practice. The course considers the lawyer-client relationship, the regulatory framework governing legal practice including the role of self-regulation, the role of lawyers as advocates including the responsibility of lawyers for access to justice and the special duties and roles of the criminal defence lawyer, the prosecutor, and the public interest lawyer.

Lawyers and clients
- communication, representation and advice
- interviewing skills
- lawyers' fees and costs
- representation
- aspects of practice
Lawyers' duties and regulation
- admission to the legal profession and legal education
- self-regulation, competition and reform
- the disciplinary process
- the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner
- duties of competence and care
- fiduciary duties
- advocacy and justice
- negotiation skills
- ethics in negotiating
- access to justice
- poverty and public interest lawyering
- the adversary system and fairness and candour in civil litigation
- duties of prosecutors and defence lawyers in criminal trials

Y. Ross & P. MacFarlane, Lawyers' Responsibility and Accountability: Cases, Problems and Commentary (Butterworths, 2007).