This book explores the French bar's rules and ideology, tracing them to a triple concept of lawyer independence: independence from the state, from clients, and from other lawyers. That foundation contrasts with theories underlying English and United States legal ethics. Professor Leubsdorf shows how the French outlook reflects the bar's historical myth that it mediates between state and citizens and how it relates to the bar's role in French civil and criminal procedure and to interplay among the French legal professions. His book also describes the French bar's efforts to modernize and to meet its Anglo-Saxon competition.The first detailed portrait in English of any foreign bar's ethics and ideology of lawyering, this book is also the first English explanation of a system of legal ethics in its historical and social contexts. A pioneering study of how global competition in the provision of legal services affects the traditions of a national bar. Man In His Original Dignity will appeal to those interested in legal ethics and the legal professions, in law practice within Europe and in French society.