Melissa Mortazavi. “The Cost of Avoidance: Pluralism, Neutrality, and the Foundations of Modern Legal Ethics.” Florida State University Law Review, vol. 42, no. 1 (2017): 151-196.
This article traces how the American legal profession’s embrace of “neutral partisanship,” which was formalized in the 1969 Model Code of Professional Responsibility, marked a shift away from moral discourse in lawyering, a move that now constrains lawyers’ capacity to engage meaningfully with questions of justice and democratic integrity. While originally intended to manage growing demographic diversity within the profession, this moral retreat now weakens attorneys’ ability to resist authoritarian drift, as it discourages substantive ethical debate and shields the profession from value-based critique. In backsliding democracies, such structural neutrality becomes problematic, silencing the very moral reasoning and public accountability that lawyers must exercise to defend democratic norms.