Legal Ethics for Government Lawyers: Confronting Doctrinal Gaps

Despite the recent growth in the Canadian literature on legal ethics for government lawyers, the leading conceptual models have yet to be applied to resolve many of the most important legal questions facing government lawyers. In this article, I identify four key situations where the obligations of government lawyers as lawyers appear to clash with their obligations as public servants. I provide both a doctrinal analysis of how the current law applies in those situations and proposals for how the law can be clarified and improved. This analysis both provides much needed guidance to government lawyers and promotes a greater understanding by law societies as regulators, as well as other key stakeholders, of the unique challenges facing government lawyers and the need for legislative and regulatory reform.