Editorial

Editorial

This special issue of Legal Ethics is indeed special. Alexis de Tocqueville’s description of the American legal profession as the Republic’s ‘privileged body’ or ‘aristocracy’ reminds us how the lawyer’s prominent place in the United States is deeply rooted in its national identity, its public culture and its devotion to law.1 Like many of the contributors to this special issue, de Tocqueville found much about this American aristocracy both to admire and criticise. But this aristocracy makes the US ‘a nation under lawyers’.2 And it is entirely consistent
with this that, as an academic discipline, legal ethics was pioneered by American scholars.

American scholars continue to be leaders in the field. At the same time, their prominence has often encouraged a lack of attention to international developments that could inform
US regulatory norms and policies. A special issue of Legal Ethics devoted exclusively to American scholarship was therefore long overdue, and we are pleased that it includes
contributions from scholars who are pre-eminent in the field. Organised by Deborah Rhode, Professor at Stanford University and President of the International Association of
Legal Ethics, the Symposium features a rich cross-section of American scholarship on ethics and the legal profession.

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