Hofstra Law Review Volume 36 | Issue 2 Article 16 2007 What Lawyers, What Edge? Michael E. Tigar Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Tigar, Michael E. (2007) "What Lawyers, What Edge?," Hofstra Law Review: Vol. 36: Iss. 2, Article 16. Available at: http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlr/vol36/iss2/16 This document is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hofstra Law Review by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Tigar: What Lawyers, What Edge? WHAT LAWYERS, WHAT EDGE? Michael E. Tigar* I. INTRODUCTION When Monroe Freedman called and said that the conference was to be titled "Lawyering at the Edge," my response was like that of Professor Steven Gillers. I said, "the edge of what?" An edge implies a shape, an area, and theoretically on this surface, we are to localize lawyer behavior, and, again as Steven Gillers recognized, the rules cannot define the edge. They simply describe ways of seeing it. These ways of seeing or interpreting are influenced by the independence of the bar as an institution and the requirement of lawyer autonomy, as well as by the content of the rules themselves. Some of the rules, such as the ones that require zeal on behalf of clients when we are engaged in advocacy, operate under social and historical circumstances that make it inevitable that the edge will be difficult to define.