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Introduction The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ meaning ‘character’ and from the Latin word ‘mores’ meaning ‘customs’. Both the terms when gets combined provide a definition of how an individual chooses to interact with one another. Ethics in philosophy represents what is good for the person, for the society in general, and the established nature of duties people owe themselves and one another. Ethical values and legal principles are interconnected with each other, but an ethical obligation typically exceeds legal duties. This is true in some cases when the law mandates unethical conduct, especially when a law is unjust, but the law has decided the ethical duties to supersede over the legal obligations. Legal Ethics Ethics play a significant role in the legal profession, as advocates are often looked up doubtfully by others. Their clients have major trust issues, which mostly leads to arising of conflicting problems. An advocate is accountable to his client and should be honest and loyal towards them.
Besides honesty, he should exercise his duty in the interest of his client, respect the court and seta of justice, respect the laws of the land, and adhere to the other professional rules and ethics. It is noteworthy that if an advocate breaches upon his professional duty, it is regarded as a ‘professional misconduct’ or can be filed for contempt of court. The fundamental of the legal ethics may be defined as a written or unwritten code of conduct for regulating the behaviour of an advocate himself, his clients, and his adversary in law and towards the Hon’ble court. In India, the legal profession has a statutory code of practice in the form of Advocates Act and Bar Councils Act which regulate the behaviour and professional conduct of advocates The Bar Council of India, a statutory body created under the Advocates Act, 1961 regulates and represents the Indian Bar members, prescribes standards of professional etiquette, conduct, and exercise disciplinary jurisdiction seven Lamps of Advocacy
Per contra, lawyers are supposed to be honest since they have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of their clients. Such honesty should be reflected in every single act of theirs viz. While delivering the Argument, thoughts, words, so on. Honesty and straightforwardness resemble the quality of not being relied on the leverage of deceit, dishonesty, cheating, or any other unethical or criminal behaviour. If so, it will amount to a kind of professional misconduct and vitiate their growth. Primarily, he should be a pioneer to reinforce justice in every possible way, not to be adept at deceiving. He should provide proper legal guidance to his clients. Honesty in the profession will efficiently help him to succeed in his field.
- Courage The nexus between courage and honesty are irrefutable. Refined legal knowledge, skills, and other qualities of truthfulness will enhance the ability to remain fearless under pressure and pain. But why advocates are supposed to possess this quality? This is not an open-ended question since courage is the defined quality of great lawyers
attributable to eloquent speech, persuasive writings, and critical thinking. Good lawyers always combine extraordinary work ethics with compassion. No matter how talented and result-oriented is an advocate; he can never find himself as an expert in this field unless and until he has courage. Courage connotes pacifists with a strong moral compass and the capacity to uphold their clients in front of the bench. Thus, lawyers should not back off his action even it might be a dissent one out of fear or danger advancing towards them.
- Wit Wit denotes the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure. In other words, it is the capacity to think clearly and speak concisely with an ingenious expression of thoughts. The phraseology wit lightens the darkness of advocacy implies the significance of this lamp. But why an advocate must possess this quality? Because, it imparts a great deal of critical analyzing skills as it is the outcome of cleverness, intelligence, smartness, and keen-mindedness.
strength of people and its standard of excellence will generally found at any given period to be complete harmony with the prevailing ideas of the best class of citizens. ” Thus, if the law gets amended in compliance with societal needs, lawyers should also be acquainted with the latest law.
- Eloquence This lamp plays a pivotal role in assessing the abilities of an advocate, which determines his career success rate. Eloquence is the art of speaking; in fact, it is a panacea for all other incompetence. But, one must know that an eloquent speech is way more different than mere deliverable speech as it holds a long-lasting effect on the bench as well as the clients and the listeners. In general, the word eloquence implies an error- free fluent communication that has a persuasive effect but never prescribes to deliver a grandiloquent speech that sounds better than the actuality. Fluency of speech can be developed, but it is a continual process that demands an acquired keen knowledge on the subject, followed by the practitioner.
Steps to bring off this skill, Noticing other parties faults Presence of mind Efficacy in argumentation with justification.
- Judgement It is the most important of all the Seven Lamps of Advocacy. Judgment in advocacy is a skill by which an advocate ascertains the collective case facts by discerning both merits and demerits of the case at hand. Anticipating the possible counterarguments and tackling the same by having an intellectual capacity to see the right turning point of the case. Basically, it is the deed of translating good sense into good action. An advocate is obliged to inform the true legal status of the case to his clients. He should be adept at picking option which seems righter at the time of the decision, withal, figuring out all the possible contingencies that will arise.
- Fellowship While conducting the lawsuits advocates obviously opposes the other to uphold the interests of their clients. But, such a battle of words in the court hall shall not bother the friendly relation
conclusion The collective crux of the aforementioned seven lamps of advocacy elucidates the qualities of a successful advocate and provides that an advocate has to uphold justice by all fair and honourable means, fearlessly. In addition to that, in the book named “ Professional conduct and advocacy” , Mr. K. N. Krishnaswamy Aiyer pioneered one more lamp called Tact. This eighth lamp i.e. the Tact discusses the people skill, in toto, and explains why an advocate should develop his ability to deal with people.
