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State Ethical Codes And Federal Practice: Emerging Conflicts And Suggestions For Reform, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

The standards for resolving putative conflicts between federal laws are not always clear, and neither for that matter is the standard for determining what constitutes a federal law capable of superseding effect. The technique of setting federal norms of professional conduct on a decentralized basis by borrowing or incorporating state norms is increasingly troublesome to the extent that the borrowed state norms are disuniform and that they are being put to multiple remedial purposes. Federal legislation preempting state law of professional conduct is conceivable but hardly likely, particularly as the norms are pressed into duty for purposes other than professional …