ABSTRACT A lawyer's behaviour derives from their own principles and values, the norms of professionalism, the professional conduct rules and the common law. In the past, much emphasis has been placed upon the first two sources as they formed the basis of self-regulation and influenced the development of legal ethics. Recently, the Australian codes of ethics explicitly detail an increasing range of duties which might reasonably have been thought to be implicit characteristics of sound ethical values and professionalism, for example, a duty to be civil, and an explicit prohibition against harassment, intimidation and bullying. Such additions have been deemed necessary as a response to increasing concerns about lawyer incivility and empirical reports detailing high levels of harassment, intimidation and bullying within law firms. We suggest that the expansion of duties in the codes raises intriguing and troubling questions: Does the expansion of duties in the codes suggest that lawyers, as a group, need rules to act virtuously and professionally? And if so, has this always been the case, or have external factors such as an increasingly complex environment, the rise of commercialism and an increasingly diverse profession, changed the way lawyers see themselves both as moral agents and as professionals?

中文翻译：

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非专业人士：律师需要规则吗？

摘要 律师的行为源于其自身的原则和价值观、职业规范、职业行为准则和普通法。过去，人们把重点放在前两个来源上，因为它们构成了自律的基础，并影响了法律伦理的发展。最近，澳大利亚的道德准则明确详述了越来越多的职责范围，这些职责可能被合理地认为是良好的道德价值观和专业精神的隐含特征，例如，民事义务，以及明确禁止骚扰、恐吓和欺凌. 此类增加被认为是对律师不文明行为的日益关注的回应，以及详细说明律师事务所内部高度骚扰、恐吓和欺凌的实证报告。我们认为，守则中职责的扩展提出了有趣和令人不安的问题：守则中职责的扩展是否表明律师作为一个群体，需要规则才能行事有道德和专业？如果是这样，情况是否一直如此，或者是否有外部因素（例如日益复杂的环境、商业主义的兴起和日益多样化的职业）改变了律师将自己视为道德代理人和专业人士的方式？