Duties

You hire a plumber to fix a leak. He owes you one thing: a fixed pipe. Now hire a lawyer. She owes you loyalty, but she also owes the judge honesty, the other side fairness, her colleagues courtesy, and society something more than a fee. How can one person serve all these masters at once without betraying any? The Bar Council of India Rules answer by giving each relationship its own set of duties.

In two minutes

An advocate owes six overlapping duties — to the court, the client, the opponent, the profession, colleagues, and the public, State and society — and where they conflict, loyalty to the client never outranks honesty to the court.

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 Practical Training – I: Professional Ethics and Professional Accounting System on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.