Civil Law
Many Continental European systems use the "civil law" method. Under that system, all the lawyers in the case are responsible to help in the "search for the truth." If one lawyer has information that would help the other side or comes to agree with the other side's view, he or she has the right and/or duty to say so. Which system do you think is more effective and why? Also, do you see any constitutional problems with applying the civil law system to the U.S.?
For this assignment, in addition to answering the above questions, I would like you to find at least one case (which can be done most easily from Lexis) in which the limits of the adversary system were discussed or tested. The subject matter of the case itself can be anything, but the focus should be whether an attorney or firm's responsibility to a client or court outweighs some other "greater" or "moral" responsibility. For this case, please briefly discuss the ethical issue and how the court resolved it.
I think that the civil law method is better than the adversary system. The reason I prefer the civil law method is because with the civil law method they try to find the truth and let the innocent go if all the evidence shows that a defendant is innocent. In the adversary system for example if a lawyer has incrimiatin evidence on his client he does not have to disclose it. He can still fight for his client and prove his clients innocence even if he knows his client is not innocent. In an article I read called comparisons with the inquisitorial approach it had some points I agreed with here is a little bit of the article: "In many jurisdictions the approaches of each system are often formal differences in the way cases are reviewed. It is questionable that there results would be different if cases were conducted under the differing approaches; infact no statistics exist that can show that these systems do not come to the same result.
However, these approaches are often a matter of national pride
For this assignment, in addition to answering the above questions, I would like you to find at least one case (which can be done most easily from Lexis) in which the limits of the adversary system were discussed or tested. The subject matter of the case itself can be anything, but the focus should be whether an attorney or firm's responsibility to a client or court outweighs some other "greater" or "moral" responsibility. For this case, please briefly discuss the ethical issue and how the court resolved it.
I think that the civil law method is better than the adversary system. The reason I prefer the civil law method is because with the civil law method they try to find the truth and let the innocent go if all the evidence shows that a defendant is innocent. In the adversary system for example if a lawyer has incrimiatin evidence on his client he does not have to disclose it. He can still fight for his client and prove his clients innocence even if he knows his client is not innocent. In an article I read called comparisons with the inquisitorial approach it had some points I agreed with here is a little bit of the article: "In many jurisdictions the approaches of each system are often formal differences in the way cases are reviewed. It is questionable that there results would be different if cases were conducted under the differing approaches; infact no statistics exist that can show that these systems do not come to the same result.
However, these approaches are often a matter of national pride