This Understanding treatise analyzes the fundamental issues of lawyers' ethics and the ABA's Model Rules. It is designed to facilitate a real understanding of legal rules as distinguished from a superficial familiarity with them by challenging the reader to test their understanding of the legal rules against the reader's own moral standards and reasoned judgment.

The sixth edition has substantial new material on cross-examination in sexual assault cases; prosecution in the context of race and policing; the rise of the "progressive prosecutor movement"; the renewed call for the U.S. Supreme Court to abide by the Code of Judicial Ethics; and the ethics of lawyers engaged in former president Donald Trump's scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.