Editor's Preface to the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility 2006 Annual Meeting Papers

Extract

On January 5, 2006, the American Association of Law Schools Section on Professional Responsibility hosted a section meeting on the Professional Responsibility and the Religious Traditions. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce law professors to a deeper understanding of the influence of religious traditions on the shaping of the modern understanding of the role of the lawyer in social life, their viability as traditions for critique of professional norms and practices, and the expectations these traditions set for the ethical behavior of lawyers, particularly those who come out of these traditions.

The conference began with the assumption that, before secular rules of professional responsibility came to regulate American lawyers, their religious traditions provided a rich body of narratives, values and rules about the nature of the lawyer's calling, his or her role in society, and expectations for ethical conduct. The organizing assumption of the program was that these traditions of professional responsibility, while they share many common assumptions, also interpret the lawyer's role and responsibilities in distinctive ways.