When we told people that we were writing a book on lawyers and morality, the common reply was “It must be a short book.” This response betrays a misunderstanding of the often obscure, sometimes conflicting moral maze in which lawyers work. What is perceived as a lack of morality may in fact be the result of a double dose of morality in which the training of church and childhood is canceled by the ethics of courts and clients. To understand the attorney's dilemma requires insight into lawyers as both persons and professionals.

This book, like all others, has a special history. It grew out of a marriage between psychology and law, literally and figuratively. One of us is a developmental psychologist; the other, a lawyer who practices and teaches. The main ideas for our work arose from a coincidence of two phenomena that concern women and their place in law: first, the rapidly rising number of women entering the legal profession in the United States and, second, a growing body of psychological research regarding gender differences.

From our conversations came the idea of applying the psychologist's interest in morality, social roles, and personal identity to the world of practicing attorneys. In that world lawyers are supposed to think and feel in a prescribed way — neutral, detached, objective, rational.