Public Interest, Professional Bargains: Ethical Conflicts between Lawyers and Professional Engineers

Abstract

Environmental experts come from many fields, including biology, geosciences, ecology, chemistry, engineering, social science, and economics. Each discipline has its own set of norms, practices, ethics,guidelines, and procedures, which differ from those of the legal profession. Wherever the disciplines intersect, there is a potential for disagreement. This Article examines one such set of potential clashes — the conflict between a lawyer‘s duties of loyalty and confidentiality, and the engineer‘s paramount duty to the public health, safety, and welfare.

Keywords: ethics, legal ethics, professionalism, environmental law, engineering, engineering ethics