It seems that this is too varied a position to pin a single label on.
One label would be "conventional" or "Law and order" morality, as used in Kohlberg's stages of moral development. It's worth noting that this is not a prescriptive theory by an ethicist about how people should think or behave, but a descriptivist theory by a psychologist about how they do. In summary, the claim is that most people defer moral reasoning to some sort of outside societal consensus, one example of which could be a codified law.
Again reaching away from philosophy and toward sociologists, Haidt et al's Moral foundations theory suggests that most people's moral reasoning rests on some subset of six abstract principles: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity and Liberty. Without looking into why these abstract principles are considered foundations for morality, some of these lend some support to a "legal implies moral" claim: liberty, authority, and fairness most obviously.
A "Liberty" foundation echoes strongly with the legal principle "Everything which is not forbidden is allowed." That is, human freedom is respected by default, and there is a deep suspicion of any claims that would curtail it.
"Authority" does not have quite the same sense as in "appeal to authority", in which the "authority" is assumed to know better. It is more a morality of deference. The authority defines better. This does not actually need the source of law to be unchanging or necessarily even "right". If your law-giver declares a hose-pipe ban, it would be subversive to water your garden with a hose pipe. If they then lift that ban, it would not.
"Fairness" perhaps wants the most exposition: the argument would be that the law provides fairness by defining the constraints for everyone. Interestingly, this also allows for a model that there could be a changeable or bad law, which individual morality is still bound or released by. For example, I might believe in the abstract that a society which curtailed advertising would be better off; I might even want to push for laws restricting advertising. At the same time as a business owner in a society that does not curtail advertising, I might feel released to advertise as hard as I can, so as to compete on a level field with the rest of my industry. For a second example, consider the many pro-gun arguments (mostly in the USA) that have the basic form "If the bad guys have guns, the good guys should too."
Moving away from Haidt, perhaps a rule consequentialist could decide that "Just follow the law of the land" is a good rule for the typical non-expert to practically maximise utility. This almost swings back to Kohlberg's conventionalism, but it's actually a higher level. Such a person is not just defering to society because it's never occured to them to think for themselves. Instead they have explored broader principles, recognised their own human falibility, and chosen to defer where that is likely better than trying to figure things out for themselves. If anything, such a person is more likely to to see codified law as something thought through by relative experts, and be less likely to see accidental consensus about etiquette or such as binding.
There are other ways that one could arrive at "legal implies morally permissible" from other moral frameworks. My purpose here was just to illustrate some of the diversity.
The question that remains is "is it a fallacy?" That is going to depend on what is actually being argued. Most of my suggested mechanisms would make it understandable that someone would go to it as a useful heuristic for what they should do in a moment. As with all heuristics, it would still remain defeasible. To reiterate, Kohlberg's theory is descriptive rather than normative, but it does leave room for progressing to the next stage and reasoning more abstractly. Haidt's foundations are mutually intertwined, so a liberty foundation might nevertheless be trumped by a care foundation. Rule consequentialism could maintain deference to society's experts in general, while following ones' own rules on some issues which one has taken the time to evaluate.
It would probably be suboptimal to take the principle for individual decisions in which there is sufficient time to work through other morally relevant considerations. It is almost† certainly be fallacious to take the principle not for individual decisions but for guiding what society's laws should be. That would indeed be circular reasoning.
† almost because time delays can break the circle. Precedent based legal systems work with this and are not circular: instead of "it's legal because it's legal" they say "it's (il)legal today because it was (il)legal yesterday". They tend to lean heavily on notions of "fairness" too: it would be unfair if the same action was punished in one case and not the other. But sane legal systems will have some form of mind change release valve to avoid the obvious sunk cost fallacy, and that release valve will require moral reasoning other than "it was legal yesterday."
Legal but not Ethical Conducts and Ethical but not Legal.
Legal but not Ethical Conducts
Not ethical but Legal definition is a major difference.
Laws are written and stated and expected to be followed for legal purposes. A code of ethics is unwritten moral rules that differ from person to person and between cultures.
Not Ethical but Legal
Five controversial examples are legal but not ethical
01. I give a person a certain amount of money that is definitely legal. Later I ask him for a favor of some kind, I’m one step from being a slug. This is totally legal but when a person betrays me this unethical.
02. Keeping money that someone dropped is legal, but again, many would find it unethical.
03. The death penalty is also legal in many states, but a multitude of individuals consider it unethical.
04. Smoking cigarettes in public is legal in some places, but some may find it disrespectful and unethical.
05. Abortion is legal in some places, but many consider it unethical.
01. When a child is hungry and he stole a loaf of bread from a shop to feed.
This action is ethical because a child is hungry and he wants something to eat but this is illegal because stealing is illegalized throughout the world.
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02. The transformer gives us electricity.
But the transformer emits a lot of heat that is why it may sometime burn out causing real damage some times to the people. Therefore if someone removes the fuse of the transformer while there is a chance that the transformer may burn out it is illegal but it is perfectly ethical because the person who removes the fuses would want to avoid damage.
03. It is illegal to run a traffic light or speed even though it is ethical & also legal if someone’s life depended on it… Like if we had to rush them to the hospital.
04. It can be illegal not to fulfill a contract, but it might be ethical for any number of logical reasons.
05. It is illegal to lease a car or an apartment in your name for someone else who otherwise would not qualify but it is an ethical thing to do if it is going to help them succeed in life.
In a nutshell session, Ethics and laws can be a murky subject because laws are always changing, and ethics are infinitely varied. Ethics depend, in part, on the level of social and cultural integration between people within a society.
For example, a tribal system and a state-level society usually have differing opinions on what is ethical. However, the differences between people mean there will always be a gap between what is legal and what is ethical. Ethical but not Legal and Legal but not Ethical Conducts.
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