The ethical professional identities of ILP lawyer directors: Integrated, leveraged, or problematic?

This thesis examines the central question of how the responsibilities of being a director of an incorporated legal practice (ILP) may impact upon the lawyer’s ethical professional identity. It investigates how the participants construct their director identity and explores the motivations behind the decision to become an ILP director. Additionally, it considers how these lawyer directors view and manage the ‘duality’ involved between the roles of lawyer and director, particularly in relation to their ethical obligations owed to their clients, the administration of justice, and the legal profession. This research seeks to fill a gap in empirical study investigating a new site of professional community, the ILP director. Through analysing the two different professional identities that the lawyer director inhabits, this thesis considers whether the individuals are able to readily integrate the two, perhaps even leverage them to perform more effectively in each role, or whether they find it problematic, managing competing aspects of being both lawyer and director.