법조윤리의 법철학적 기초 - 표준적인 법조윤리관에 대한 재해석을 겸하여 -

초록

Traditionally lawyers have been considered as partisan representatives of their clients that gave priorities clients’ interests over public interests or third party interests in England and America. The neutral partisanship represented the traditional image of lawyers. The new wave of legal ethics emerged in the mid 1970s. The new legal ethicists viewed lawyers as ethical advisors on the contrary to the traditional image of lawyers. However, the standard conception of legal ethics based on the traditional image of lawyers have dominated in the legal profession until now. In the course of discussions on the standard conception of legal ethics the basic theories of legal ethics have become the main field of legal ethics. General jurisprudence is essential for particular jurisprudence. Likewise, legal-philosophical study is essential for legal ethics. The core issues of legal ethics relate to legal philosophy in the way that they imply basic questions on the nature of law. Basic theories of legal ethics including legal-philosophical theories have been neglected even in the United States for decades. But the Watergate scandal in 1970s, the Enron scandal and the war on terror in 2000s have prompted people to doubt the validity of standard conception. It demanded academic research on basic theories of legal ethics. As a logical consequence, the discourse on the legal-philosophical foundations of legal ethics has gradually been strengthened up to this day. According to the standard conception of legal ethics, lawyers have to protect and pursue their client’s legitimate interests within the bounds of the law.)’In other words, the bounds of the law constrain their partisan representation of clients. Since the discourse on the bounds of the law presupposes the discourse on nature of law, legal ethics is subject to legal philosophy. The plausibility of a legal ethics theory depends on the validity of its legal-philosophical foundations. Legal ethics is about the law, that is to say a branch of legal science. Nowadays the public trust and confidence in legal profession collapses in Korea. The crisis of legal profession means the crisis of legal ethics. As the crisis of jurisprudence requires studies in the legal philosophy, the crisis of legal ethics requires studies in legal philosophy.

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