On the crossroads of
legal ethics and corporate ethics stands a new ethics concept, which we  name ---  "Neoethics."

Neoethics is the new combined legal/social ethical framework in which lawyers work and businesses operate.  That new framework creates a new way in which lawyers and corporate managers must perceive ethics as a subject of study and as a tool for superior performance in the marketplace..

Law and business both need new ethics rules and refinements that respond to this framework and perception.  More than that, both lawyers and also corporate managers need to perceive ethics as aspirational goals.  Ethics can no longer be only bright line minimum standards to be checked off as barely met.   We must learn ethics issues sensitivity.  We must take into our hands the easily available tools to help us solve ethics problems in a new way.

We know that social and cultural changes have occurred since Enron and 911.   But we do not sufficiently understand the nature of the “legal ethics” and "corporate governance" which have followed (not lead) the social and cultural changes of the last half dozen years.

There are two common definitions of "ethics":

1. Ethics. The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.

  2. Ethics. The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession.

Neoethics, the new world of legal and corporate ethics, exists because of the merging of  these two dictionary definitions. Moral philosophy and the standards governing lawyers are merging, as they never have before. The public and government now demand something from lawyers that courts and even plaintiff's malpractice lawyers previously have not demanded. The public and government demand that the legal rules governing lawyers’ conduct respond to the public perception of the moral choices lawyers and corporate officers should make.   Lawyers who do not recognize that will find themselves more and more often visited by the malpractice committee of the bar or a plaintiff's attorney.

The same is true of corporate governance, that is: moral philosophy (definition # 1 above) and the standards governing businesses (definition # 2 above) are merging, as they never have before. The public and government demand that the legal rules governing corporate governance equate to the public perception of the moral choices corporate officers should make.  Businesses who do not recognize that will be behind the pack in a few years!

This is a “new ethics” requirement for private practice lawyers and corporate counsel: to act in accordance with a contemporary public morality instead of a lawyer-generated set of rules.  The contemporary public morality is becoming the law standard.   This is new in corporate internal governance and in lawyer malpractice cases.

There is something to Lon Fuller’s view  [Lon L. Fuller, Positivism and Fidelity to Law, 71 Harvard L. Rev. 645(1958).]  that the legal order has an implicit  internal morality. In a democracy, laws are enacted on society’s ideas based on an implicit internal morality. Our common law negligence actions (malpractice) and our statutory regulation of commerce (e.g., the new SEC rules for lawyers) are based on the majority’s idea of justice. These standards are not constructed in an ivory tower of academia.  And  today's standards for lawyers and businesses are not being set by bar associations and trade associations.  Today's standards --- which are becoming law through statute, court decision, and jury verdict --- are being driven by a public morality in action

The penalties for violating this contemporary neoethics requirement are both new and substantial. They affect not only individual lawyers and corporations, but also the entire legal system as a social institution.

[*] Neoethics Note: If you notice that this page is like one at eDicta, it is because Bucklin is both the author of this page (and holds the copyright), and Bucklin is also the ethics section editor of eDicta. eDicta is authorized by Bucklin to use the content from various pages of this site. eDicta is to be published as an Internet zine by the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association

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