ETHICS - THE ADVERSARIAL SYSTEM AND BUSINESS PRACTICE*

Abstract

[This article is an edited version of a lecture delivered in November 2004 to Melbourne University Juris Doctor students. It takes as its starting point the argument that the ethics of the adversarial legal system ill accord with the norms of society and that we should discard it in favour of the inquisi- torial system. That view is contrasted with the school of thought which takes the ethical superiority of the adversarial system as given and with the idea that increasing commercialisation of the legal profession may be leading us away from the nobler traditions of the adversarial system.]