Iris van Domselaar is Professor of Legal philosophy and Legal ethics and founding director of the Amsterdam Center on the Legal Professions and Access to Justice. She has studied both philosophy and law and was a visiting fellow at the Department of Philosophy of Harvard University and at the Department of Philosophy of Chicago University.Van Domselaar's research focuses on the question how to account for ethics in legal practice. She especially addresses this question in relation to the classic legal institutions and legal roles relevant for securing values of political morality and the rule of law. Drawing on neo-Aristotelian/neo-Wittgensteinian strands within practical philosophy and on social-empirical research, she seeks to come to grips with ethics as 'lived experience' on the part of legal professionals and of citizens who are directly involved in legal procedures.
In her Ph.D. thesis ‘The Fragility of Rightness. Adjudication and the primacy of practice’ van Domselaar developed a virtue-ethical approach to legal decision-making in which a 'six pack' of judicial virtues, the concept of civic friendship and that of tragic legal choice play a key role. In 2015 she won the departmental prize for best article of the year with her article Moral Quality in Adjudication: On Judicial Virtues and Civic Friendship. She has published extensively in professional and international top journals. More recently, she has published on the topic of moral perception in legal practice, moral remainders and legal reasoning, and legal ethics for (corporate) lawyers. In her inaugural address 'Law, ethics and Philoctetes' cry. What legal professionals owe to citizens' van Domselaar proposes a citizen-oriented approach to legal ethics.Van Domselaar is frequently invited as keynote/guest speaker on the topic of lawyers' ethics, judicial ethics, tragic legal choice, professional courage, moral perception and law. Since September 2021 Van Domselaar is editor-in-chief of the Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy. In 2024 she will host the International Conference of Legal Ethics together with her colleagues from the ACLPA.
Research interests/Expertise
Virtue ethics and law, moral perception in legal practice, ethics for corporate lawyers, tragedy and moral dilemma's in law, legal and professional ethics, digital justice, professional courage, legal reasoning, theories of justice, theories of adjudication, law and emotions, neo-Aristotelian/neo-Wittgensteinian accounts of justice/professional ethics, civic friendship, law and the ethics of proximity.
Introduction to Legal Ethics (Bachelor first year course)
Minor track The Legal Professions (Bachelor)
Legal Ethics and Lawyers (MA)
Legal Ethics in Context (MA part of experiential learning programme)