Lincoln's Legal Ethics
How Abraham Lincoln Pioneered Modern Rules for the Practice of Law
Inside the future president’s legal practice in Illinois
Cloth – $40
979-8-240-40007-0
eBook – $19.95
979-8-240-40009-4
Publication Date
About the Book
Abraham Lincoln built his legal career on honesty, fairness, reasonable fees, and strong advocacy for clients. Yet Lincoln, like other attorneys of his time, occasionally strayed outside the unwritten, less codified rules that lawyers followed and judges enforced.Roger D. Billings Jr. examines how Lincoln’s practices in Illinois helped shape the development of the legal standards that lawyers follow today. Lincoln learned the law through self-study, experience, and mentorship. Billings focuses on actual cases to show Lincoln’s ethical choices when confronted with issues like conflict of interest, client trust, and honesty with the court. In addition, the studies shine a light on the future president’s on-the-job performance. Though an imperfect practitioner, Lincoln and his energetic work on behalf of clients and way of doing business, among other practices, influenced the evolution of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct in the United States.
An original study of Lincoln’s years at the bar, Lincoln’s Legal Ethics connects the self-styled country lawyer with modern legal standards.
About the Author
Roger D. Billings, Jr.is a retired professor of law at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. He is the coeditor of Abraham Lincoln, Esq.: The Legal Career of America’s Greatest President.Reviews
“Roger Billings provides a new examination into an unexplored aspect of Lincoln’s legal career. Legal ethics was less structured in Lincoln’s time than the codified rules of today. Modern legal practitioners and Lincoln historians will gain a deeper insight into Lincoln’s law practice generally and legal ethics specifically.”—John A. Lupton, Executive Director, Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission
“We have capable studies of Lincoln’s legal career and thoughtful analyses of his ethics, but heretofore no attempt has been made to combine those two perspectives. In this innovative work, Roger Billings dexterously fills that gap in the literature, assessing how well Lincoln, during his quarter-century at the bar, lived up to the ethical standards of his time and judging how he looks measured by today's standards.”
—Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life
“With the fine historical prose and the deep knowledge of a law professor, Roger Billings gives readers a new perspective of Lincoln’s career as a lawyer, showing both the highs and the lows of Honest Abe’s path in the law.”
—Jonathan W. White, author of A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House
“In a meticulously researched, wisely argued book, Roger Billings explores the roots of an ethical and savvy presidency by re-evaluating the record of an ethical and savvy attorney. Abraham Lincoln emerges as a man of both character and, when called for, cunning: an innovative lawyer who becomes a barrier-breaking executive, willing to follow and, when called for, test the limits of the law. Billings gives us a new way to see Lincoln, and it is well worth the view.”
—Harold Holzer, winner of the Lincoln Prize
“Roger Billings’s book is an original treatment of an essential element of Lincoln’s law practice. This subject has never been dealt with in the focused manner of this important book.”
—Guy Fraker, author of Lincoln’s Ladder to the Presidency: The Eighth Judicial Circuit
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