LAW456
Professionalism and Ethics
(Nye)
Prerequisite courses:
Prerequisite for:
Instructor(s): Professor Hillary Nye
Course credit: 3
Method of presentation: Seminar
Teamwork: YES
METHOD OF EVALUATION
Final exam (70%) (please note this will not be a paper course)
In-class presentations (20%)
Participation (10%)
COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course, we aim to explore the ethical and moral obligations of lawyers, as well as the dilemmas and challenges they may encounter. I hope to help you critically examine and answer questions related to what sort of lawyer you want to be, how to be a professional in the field of law, and what sort of obligations we have to society and to our clients. In addition to these specific aims of reflecting on the role of lawyers, the course aims to fulfill several general objectives, including helping you to think critically about the institution you will soon join, developing the ability to craft good arguments, developing the skill of critiquing the arguments of others, encountering challenges to your own views and facing the possibility of revising them in the presence of new ideas, and strengthening your ability to express your own ideas both orally and in writing.
SPECIAL COMMENTS
Description updated 2026-27. Please contact the instructor for any specific questions you may have related to this particular course section.
REQUIRED TEXTS (IF ANY)
Lawyers’ Ethics and Professional Regulation (4th Edition), by Alice Woolley, Richard F. Devlin, and Brent Cotter (Available at the University of Alberta Bookstore)
We will also refer to the Law Society of Alberta’s Code of Conduct, available online: https://documents.lawsociety.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/14211909/Code.pdf
Other readings may be posted on TWEN as needed.