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This chapter explains the limited ways in which legal ethics and professionalism are addressed in most traditional law programs and proposes more challenging goals for legal education, recognizing the importance of introducing students to the values underpinning the professional codes. It presents the diversity of approaches to addressing lawyer competence, ethics, and professionalism in different jurisdictions, and identifies the different ways in which clinical legal education and clinical methods may be used to address these issues. The chapter considers the advantages and disadvantages of each, and gives concrete examples of effective methods. It underpins this with the theoretical basis for such experiential learning approaches and explains how active learning can provide effective ways of encouraging moral development. It also considers the particular contribution played by the global clinical movement to developing legal ethics education.

This chapter examines how clinical legal education, including its curriculum, teachers, teaching-methods, students, and social justice mission, influence legal education generally and connect law schools to their surrounding communities. It shows how clinical education introduced the study of lawyering to mainstream legal education and has promoted the use interactive teaching methods, including simulations, supervised case work, and problem-solving exercises, which help foster critical thinking necessary. Clinics also draw client interests, social justice, and professional values into the center of legal education, and have the capacity to promote links among various groups interested in the outcomes of legal education, serving as a bridge to broader community and professional engagement. The chapter argues that clinics have the greatest impact when insights from clinical experiences are incorporated in an integrative model with other teaching to form a developmental progression.

As a boundary crossing profession, social workers interact with various professional groups and frequently experience ethical dilemmas and apparent value clashes. This chapter argues that most helping professions share many values and ethical principles. Many of the interprofessional values clashes are more likely down to structural issues. As social work has historically been practised in host settings since its inception, the profession is well placed for cross boundary work. When value clashes do exist, having social work's holistic systems perspective allows professionals to work across boundaries. Understanding the shared professional values and beliefs and seeing structural barriers as root of interprofessional “value clashes” opens opportunities for overcoming barriers.

Chapter three opens by focussing upon debates on ethics and values with a particular focus on debates on the public service ethos and whether this is being undermined by public service modernisation agendas. This sets the context for the discussion of Law Centres’ own distinctive ethos and professional values, drawing upon original research into the views and experiences of staff and volunteers in Law Centres in England. Law Centres were highly committed to the values associated with access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay and/ or other social disadvantages. In addition, they were strongly committed to working with disadvantaged communities to promote human rights and social justice agendas more widely, with an emphasis upon working holistically, collaboratively and in preventative ways to achieve these aims. These goals were potentially challenging to achieve at the best of times, let alone in the current context. On the contrary, government policies were being geared towards the promotion of competition and the increasing use of market mechanisms more generally.

This chapter looks critically at the New Labour reforms to the youth justice system and the ideas and values active in political rhetoric, policy and practice throughout their three terms in office. Three distinct periods were evident and there is now a fourth separate period taking shape under the Coalition, operating with a different ideology and in a climate of austerity. Some of New Labour’s extensive youth justice framework is being dismantled but other elements - such as multi-agency youth offending teams - are still in place. And while the Coalition is less keen on criminalising young people, it seems no more on their ’side’ than New Labour. The question is whether academics and practitioners can come together to press for change in a direction that is more attentive to young people in transition and their needs.

This chapter brings together the evidence on the impact of these changes on staff motivation and commitment. The New Public Management has been criticised for assuming that people in general – and public service professionals more specifically – can't be trusted, needing the discipline of targets and close monitoring. This negative approach fails to take account of the actual motivations and values of those involved, it has been argued, motivations and values that may actually be undermined by the imposition of target-type cultures, such as those associated with the New Public Management. The research did indeed identify examples of disaffection and demoralisation among Law Centre staff and volunteers. Some were so alienated that they were actually leaving, feeling that it was becoming impossible to work in ways that were consistent with their professional values any longer. More widely though, there were inspiring examples of continuing commitment amongst staff and volunteers, giving of their time as ‘labours of love’. This was despite the pressures and dilemmas that they were experiencing, dilemmas that would have been less draining for them personally if they had not been investing so much emotional labour in the process.

Chapter one outlines the history of varying approaches to social citizenship and the welfare state, exploring the different perspectives that underpin these debates. This sets the context for critically exploring more recent debates on public service modernisation and the increasing use of market mechanisms in public service provision. Some individuals may benefit from increasing choice as a result of these policies. But others may have less choice as a result, and this especially applies to people living in less advantaged communities. Public service modernisation agendas can have significant impacts on public service professionals too, posing professional dilemmas, potentially undermining the public service ethos in the process.

This chapter discusses how popular culture has portrayed professionalism's key tenets. Apart from questioning whether journalists are true professionals (or even should be professionals) scholars have been particularly interested in the role of “objectivity” in journalism and in the practice and philosophy behind journalism ethics. In popular culture, so-called objective reporting is shown to be deeply problematic and is often implicitly equated to a lack of passion and commitment. Still, professional values do have a place as ethical dilemmas are brought to dramatic life and journalists who violate the public trust suffer the consequences of their misdeeds. Indeed, pop culture reinforces many of the critiques of professionalism—hard, cold reality trumps principles taught in school; reportorial objectivity is difficult to achieve; and ethical choices are fraught with unforeseen consequences.