The New Lawyer

The image of the adversarial "client warrior" dominates historical notions of the lawyer. Indeed, a zealous commitment to client advocacy remains one of the core norms of the legal model. However, structural changes, both in the justice system and the legal profession itself - in particular the shift towards conflict resolution rather than protracted litigation - have rendered the "warrior" notion obsolete.The new lawyer's skills go beyond court battles to encompass negotiation, mediation, and restorative justice initiatives. Julie Macfarlane sets out the parameters of practitioners' evolving roles, articulating legal and ethical complexities in a variety of contexts drawn from Canadian and American legal literature as well as relevant documents from other disciplines. The result is an extremely thoughtful exploration of the increasing impact of "alternative" consensus-seeking strategies on the lawyer-client relationship, as well as on the legal system itself. "The New Lawyer" will be of interest to lawyers, law professors, law students, members of professional regulatory bodies, mediators, justice officials, and anyone who works with lawyers.