Counselor-at-Law — Elmer Rice

Picture a lawyer who once broke a rule of his own profession to stop an unjust sentence, and a rival who wants him disbarred for it, not out of principle but out of spite. Elmer Rice's Counsellor-at-Law hands you that exact dilemma, played out over a few days in one Manhattan law office, and asks whether ends can ever justify unethical means — precisely the question a law exam wants you to be able to argue both ways.

In two minutes

Counsellor-at-Law follows George Simon, a self-made lawyer threatened with disbarment for once letting a client perjure himself to escape an unjust sentence, and uses his crisis to ask whether a professionally wrong act can still be morally right.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of English – II on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.