Top Ten Most Frequently Downloaded Ethics-Related Articles on SSRN

The Legal Profession Blog put up a list of the 10 most frequently downloaded ethics-related articles on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) over the last week.  It got me to thinking about what the all-time list is.  Here are the results:

ALL TIME HITS (for all papers in SSRN eLibrary)
TOP 10 Papers for Journal of Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility
January 2, 1997 to October 5, 2006

Rank	Downloads	Paper Title
1	2217	The Stakeholder Concept: A Mistaken Doctrine Date posted to database: March 13, 2001 Last Revised: May 21, 2003
2	1392	Virtue Jurisprudence: A Virtue-Centered Theory of Judging Lawrence B. Solum, University of Illinois College of Law, Date posted to database: January 16, 2003 Last Revised: January 24, 2003
3	1240	Managerialism, Legal Ethics, and Sarbanes-Oxley Section 307 Stephen M. Bainbridge, Christina J. Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law, Independent, Date posted to database: September 9, 2003 Last Revised: September 29, 2003
4	1091	Sharing Accounting's Burden: Business Lawyers in Enron's Dark Shadows Lawrence A. Cunningham, Boston College Law School, Date posted to database: April 26, 2002 Last Revised: June 19, 2003
5	890	Intellectual Property Wendy J. Gordon, Boston University School of Law, Date posted to database: June 6, 2003 Last Revised: August 11, 2003
6	801	A Tournament of Judges? Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, New York University - School of Law, Duke University - School of Law, Date posted to database: April 16, 2003 Last Revised: October 14, 2003
7	775	Travails in Tax: KPMG and the Tax-Shelter Controversy Tanina Rostain, New York Law School, Date posted to database: May 17, 2005 Last Revised: May 11, 2006
8	702	On the Theory Class's Theories of Asbestos Litigation: The Disconnect Between Scholarship and Reality Lester Brickman, Cardozo Law School, Date posted to database: February 1, 2004 Last Revised: February 1, 2004
9	678	A Preliminary Inquiry into the Responsibility of Corporations and Their Directors and Officers for Corporate Climate: The Psychology of Enron's Demise Lynne Dallas, University of San Diego School of Law, Date posted to database: November 13, 2002 Last Revised: September 20, 2004
10	647	Suspension and Debarment: Emerging Issues in Law and Policy Steven L. Schooner, Susan Collins, Richard J. Bednar, Steven A. Shaw, Danielle Brian, James J. McCullough, John S. Pachter, Marcia G. Madsen, Christopher R. Yukins, Jennifer S. Zucker, Abram J. Pafford, George Washington University - Law School, United States Senator, Crowell & Moring LLP-Washington, DC, Department of the Air Force, Project on Government Oversight, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson - Washington, DC Office, Smith, Pachter, McWhorter & Allen, P.L.C., Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw - Washington DC Office, George Washington University Law School, U.S. Army Litigation Center - Contract Appeals Division, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson - Washington, DC Office, Date posted to database: May 12, 2004 Last Revised: December 30, 2005

Some of these articles are only very loosely connected to legal ethics. Moreover, the recent advent of SSRN results in the exclusion of many foundational articles from the 1970s and 1980s.  So the list got me thinking about what scholars would consider to be the ten most significant (defined however you like) legal ethics articles ever written.  Put your nominations in the comments.

Comments

[Jeff Lipshaw]

I will suggest a few.

Daniel Markovits, Contracts and Collaboration.
Jonathan D. Cohen (Florida - Levin) has a couple. One was in the Harvard Journal of Negotiation, and the other was in the Georgetown J. of Legal Ethics - each were about ethics in negotiation.

This is more about the practice, but Mark Suchman and Mia Cahill on lawyers as facilitators in Silicon Valley is a classic.

[Brad]

Since I'm a theory type, I'll suggest the foundational articles in the philosophical literature on legal ethics (in no particular order):

1. Richard Wasserstrom, "Lawyers as Professionals: Some Moral Issues," 5 Hum. Rts. 1 (1975).

2. Stephen L. Pepper, "The Lawyer’s Amoral Ethical Role: A Defense, A Problem, and Some Possibilities," 1986 Am. B. Found. Res. J. 613.

3. Charles Fried, "The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer-Client Relation," 85 Yale L.J. 1060 (1976).

4. Gerald J. Postema, "Moral Responsibility in Professional Ethics," 55 NYU L. Rev. 63 (1980).

5. William H. Simon, "Ethical Discretion in Lawyering," 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1083 (1988).

6. William H. Simon, "The Ideology of Advocacy: Procedural Justice and Professional Ethics," 1978 Wis. L. Rev. 29.

7. Robert W. Gordon, "The Independence of Lawyers," 68 B.U. L. Rev. 1 (1988).

8. Many articles by David Luban, and I guess the format precludes me from citing Lawyers and Justice, which is really THE foundational work in philosophical legal ethics.

8a. Other books I can't cite which are foundational are Anthony T. Kronman, The Lost Lawyer (1993) and Arthur Isak Applbaum, Ethics for Adversaries (1999).

9. Thomas L. Shaffer, "The Practice of Law as Moral Discourse," 55 Notre Dame L. Rev. 231 (1979), and many other articles by Tom Shaffer.

10. David B. Wilkins, "Legal Realism for Lawyers," 104 Harv. L. Rev. 468 (1990).

11. Ted Schneyer, "Moral Philosophy's Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics," 1984 Wis. L. Rev. 1529.

12. Monroe H. Freedman, "Professional Responsibility of the Criminal Defense Lawyer: The Three Hardest Questions," 64 Mich. L. Rev. 1469 (1966), which though primarily doctrinal is nevertheless one of the most forceful statements of the standard conception.

13. The Subin-Mitchell debate in the Geo. J. Legal Ethics, which is the best discussion I've seen of the competing values of truth and procedural justice in the criminal defense context. See Harry I. Subin, "The Criminal Lawyer's 'Different Mission': Reflections on the "Right" to Present a False Case," 1 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 125 (1987); John B. Mitchell, "Reasonable Doubts Are Where You Find Them: A Response to Professor Subin's Position on the Criminal Lawyer's 'Different Mission'," 1 Geo. J. Leg. Ethics 339 (1987).

14. Bernard Williams, "Professional Morality and Its Dispositions," in The Good Lawyer 259 (David Luban, ed., 1983).

and the newest addition ...

15. Daniel Markovits, "Legal Ethics from the Lawyer’s Point of View," 15 Yale J. L. & Human. 209 (2003).

I've limited this list to more or less pure theoretical articles from a philosophical perspective, with the exception of Freedman's three hardest questions piece and the Subin-Mitchell debate (which I included because the ethics of criminal defense is such a central issue). That means we can have other interesting discussions about classic articles in the sociology of the legal profession, law & economics articles, great doctrinal pieces, and so on.

[Andrew Perlman]

Brad,

Great list. I would have named many of those articles as well. I'm guessing that we would get substantial agreement among scholars about the foundational theory articles, but less on the foundational articles that address the other facets of legal ethics that you identify.

Andy

[Deborah Cantrell]

I would include the following as seminal books:

David Luban, Lawyers & Justice (Princeton Press 1988)
William Simon, The Practice of Justice (Harvard Univ Press 1998)
Monroe Freedman & Abbe Smith, Understanding Lawyers' Ethics (latest ver 2004)

And for articles, I'd include:

Charles Fried, The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer-Client Relation.

Thomas Shaffer, Legal Ethics and the Good Client

[John Steele]

This list is a good precursor to the list of canons that Prawfsblawg is assembling. The week for suggested canons in the ethics-PR field is October 17th.

[Andrew Perlman]

John,

Thanks for the heads up about Prawfsblaw's upcoming list.

In the meantime, let me add one more that would fall under the ethics theory category: Brad's article in the Columbia Law Review, entitled Civil Obedience, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=432420