Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Swipe Right Into A Disciplinary Hearing: How The Use Of Dating Apps Could Earn An Attorney More Than A Bad First Date, Zachary S. Aman

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct seek to police the conduct of attorneys. Each jurisdiction adopts its own rules of professional conduct to apply to the attorneys licensed within it. Notably, the model rules prohibit any sexual relationship between the attorney and client unless that relationship precedes the attorney-client relationship. Traditionally, defining a "sexual relationship" was simple, particularly if the attorney and client engaged in sexual intercourse. The introduction of dating apps, however, has blurred the line.

This article outlines the inherent risks of attorneys using dating apps at a time when most newly-licensed attorneys make up the majority of …

Model Rule 8.4(G) And The Profession’S Core Values Problem, Michael Ariens

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Model Rule 8.4(g) declares it misconduct for a lawyer to “engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.” The American Bar Association (ABA) adopted the rule in 2016 in large part to effectuate the third of its four mission goals: Eliminate Bias and Enhance Diversity. The ABA adopted these goals in 2008, and they continue to serve as ABA’s statement of its mission.

A …

Frivolous Defenses, Thomas D. Russell

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article is about civil procedure, torts, insurance, litigation, and professional ethics. The Article is the opening article in a conversation with Stanford Law Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom, who has written about the plaintiffs’ bar and settlement mill attorneys. The empirical center of this piece examines 356 answers to 298 car crash personal injury cases in Colorado’s district courts. The Article situates these cases within dispute pyramid elements, including the total number of miles-traveled within Colorado and the volume of civil litigation. The Article then analyzes the defense attorneys’ departures from the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure, especially Rule 8. …

Model Rule 8.4(G) And The Profession's Core Values Problem, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

Model Rule 8.4(g) declares it misconduct for a lawyer to "engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law." The American Bar Association (ABA) adopted the rule in 2016, in large part to effectuate the third of its four mission goals: Eliminate Bias and Enhance Diversity. The ABA adopted these goals in 2008, and they continue to serve as ABA's statement of its mission.

A …

Is It Ever Ethical For An Organization To Pressure Professionals To Violate Their Professions' Ethical Minimums?, David Ozar

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Something Wicked This Way Thumbs: Personal Contact Concerns Of Text-Based Attorney Marketing, Ashley M. London

Law Faculty Publications

When the American Bar Association (ABA) announced its latest revisions to Model Rules 7.1–7.5, governing attorney advertising, solicitation, and information about legal services in general, the organization may have unintentionally created a way for attorneys to hack directly into the brains of potential clients for purposes of pecuniary gain.

Brushing aside decades of precedent, the rule on Solicitation of Clients now allows real-time electronic solicitation, including text messaging and tweets. These developments beg the question of whether or not the ABA committee charged with redefining this rule actually understands the power and pervasiveness of cell phones, or how the use …

Autonomy Isn't Everything: Some Cautionary Notes On Mccoy V. Louisiana, W. Bradley Wendel

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The Supreme Court’s May 2018 decision in McCoy v. Louisiana has been hailed as a decisive statement of the priority of the value of a criminal defendant’s autonomy over the fairness and reliability interests that also inform both the Sixth Amendment and the ethical obligations of defense counsel. It also appears to be a victory for the vision of client-centered representation and the humanistic value of the inherent dignity of the accused. However, the decision is susceptible to being read too broadly in ways that harm certain categories of defendants. This paper offers a couple of cautionary notes, in response …

Ethics, Law Firms, And Legal Education, Milton C. Regan Jr.

Maine Law Review

A rash of recent corporate scandals has once again put professional ethics in the spotlight. It's hard to pick up the Wall Street Journal each day and not read that authorities have launched a new investigation or that additional indictments are imminent. Stories of financial fraud and outright looting have galvanized the public and shaken the economy. What ethical lessons can we draw from these events? Two explanations seem especially prominent. The first is a story of individuals without an adequate moral compass. Some people's greed and ambition were unchecked by any internal ethical constraints. For such deviants, no amount …

Philosophical Legal Ethics: An Affectionate History, David Luban, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The modern subject of theoretical legal ethics began in the 1970s. This brief history distinguishes two waves of theoretical writing on legal ethics. The "First Wave" connects the subject to moral philosophy and focuses on conflicts between ordinary morality and lawyers' role morality, while the "Second Wave" focuses instead on the role legal representation plays in maintaining and fostering a pluralist democracy. We trace the emergence of the First Wave to the larger social movements of the 1960s and 1970s; in the Conclusion, we speculate about possible directions for a Third Wave of theoretical legal ethics, based in behavioral ethics, …

Philosophical Legal Ethics: An Affectionate History, David Luban, W. Bradley Wendel

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The modern subject of theoretical legal ethics began in the 1970s. This brief history distinguishes two waves of theoretical writing on legal ethics. The “First Wave” connects the subject to moral philosophy and focuses on conflicts between ordinary morality and lawyers’ role morality, while the “Second Wave” focuses instead on the role legal representation plays in maintaining and fostering a pluralist democracy. We trace the emergence of the First Wave to the larger social movements of the 1960s and 1970s; in the conclusion, we speculate about possible directions for a Third Wave of theoretical legal ethics, based in behavioral ethics, …

Solving Ethical Puzzles To Unlock University Technology Transfer Client Work For An Intellectual Property Legal Clinic, Cynthia L. Dahl

All Faculty Scholarship

Intellectual property (IP) and technology legal clinics are experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity. Before 2000 there were only five such clinics, but by 2016 there were seventy-four, with fifty added since 2010 alone. As law schools are approving new IP clinics and as practitioners are developing syllabi, there is an increasing need to share knowledge about models that work and how to avoid pitfalls.

One potentially fertile – but traditionally underutilized -- source of client work for an IP and technology clinic is the university technology transfer office (“TTO”), the department that protects, markets, and licenses all university intellectual …

A Comprehensive Review Of The 2016 Asha Code Of Ethics, Robin L. Edge Ph.D., Ccc-Slp, Bess Sirmon-Taylor Ph.D., Ccc-Slp, Raul F. Prezas Ph.D., Ccc-Slp

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) initially implemented a Code of Ethics in 1952, and has periodically revisited the content of the document with revisions to reflect the expanding scope of practice within speech-language pathology and audiology and to clarify certain concepts. Code revision is a cyclical mandated task of the ASHA Board of Ethics conducted to assure accuracy, currency, and completeness of this most important document (Solomon-Rice & O’Rourke, 2016). The current version of the Code of Ethics (2016) was modified from the previous version (2010r), with an updated preamble, definitions of related vocabulary, and re-organized language in the principles. …

Lawyers On Trial: Juror Hostility To Defendants In Legal Malpractice Trials, Herbert M. Kritzer, Neil Vidmar

Hofstra Law Review

In contrast to medical malpractice, legal malpractice is a phenomenon that has attracted little attention from empirically-oriented scholars. This paper is part of a larger study of legal malpractice claiming and litigation. Given the evidence on the frequency of legal malpractice claims, there are surprisingly few legal malpractice cases that result in jury verdicts. There are many possible explanations for this, one of which reflects the perception that lawyers are held in such low esteem by potential jurors that they risk harsh treatment by jurors when they are defendants in legal malpractice trials. Because we could find no empirical evidence …

Ethics Issues In Representing Intergovernmental Entities, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

The creation and operation of intergovernmental entities raise special professional responsibility issues for the lawyers involved in the formation and the long-term activities of multi-governmental bodies. It is particularly important for attorneys to pay attention to conflicts of interest that arise from giving simultaneous assistance to several governments, or from representing one entity in negotiations with other governments the attorney or firm represents. This paper briefly reviews various categories of interlocal entities in Washington State, as an example. It points out the distinctly different dynamics during the formation period and the operations period of an intergovernmental body. It then analyzes …

Serving The Guilty, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Relationships, The Rules Of Professional Conduct And Land Use: Ethical Quagmires For Land Use Attorneys, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

This article begins to fill the void by introducing the application of the various Rules of Professional Conduct, as adopted by the specific opining jurisdiction, through a review of the relevant reported opinions of the various committees and sometimes courts, in the land use context. Part I discusses the challenges that arise for lawyers vis-à-vis their clients in the land use context. This is followed by a discussion in Part II of the ethics and professionalism issues that confront lawyers who serve on local boards.

Modeling The American Lawyer Ethics System, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

None available.

(Not) Advising Corporate Officers About Fiduciary Duties, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, Robert V. Ricca

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This Article explores the intersection of an important, unresolved corporate law issue and an overlooked professional responsibility issue persistently arising in the corporate milieu. The corporate law question currently unaddressed in Delaware law is whether the fiduciary duties of corporate officers, as agents, are the same as, or different from, the fiduciary duties of corporate directors. A related question is whether, in reviewing officer conduct, courts will apply the business judgment rule in the same broad (and protective) manner in which it is applied to assessing director behavior. The professional responsibility issue concerns whether, and how well, lawyers are advising …

Fidelity Diluted: Client Confidentiality Gives Way To The First Amendment & Social Media In Virginia State Bar, Ex Rel. Third District Committee V. Horace Frazier Hunter, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Kelly Rains Jesson

Articles

No abstract provided.

Attaining Academic Excellence In The Nigerian Law School: A Mirage Or Reality, Ibrahim Sule

Ibrahim Sule

No abstract provided.

Rebellious Lawyering, Regnant Lawyering, And Street-Level Bureaucracy, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

This Article explores the professional responsibilities of progressive lawyers representing the poor and disadvantaged. The author argues that lawyers representing the poor are generally good, energetic lawyers committed to social justice and lessening the pain of poverty. Subsequently, the defects found in poverty lawyering are structural, institutional, political, economic, and ethical. Therefore, the author posits that the mission of teachers and practitioners should be to develop practice patterns and proposals that account for the street-level experiences of legal services lawyers on the front lines. By examining the notions of rebellious and regnant lawyering, the author seeks to illuminate how these …

Professional Ethics In Interdisciplinary Collaboratives: Zeal, Paternalism And Mandated Reporting, Alexis Anderson, Lynn Barenberg, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

In this Article, the authors, two clinical law teachers and a social worker teaching in the clinic, wrestle with some persistent questions that arise in cross-professional, interdisciplinary law practice. In the past decade much writing has praised the benefits of interdisciplinary legal practice, but many sympathetic skeptics have worried about the ethical implications of lawyers working with nonlawyers, such as social workers and mental health professionals. Those worries include the difference in advocacy stances between lawyers and other helping professionals, and the mandated reporting requirements that apply to helping professionals but usually not to lawyers. This Article addresses those concerns …

Toward A Community-Based Ethic For Legal Services Practice, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

This Article is concerned with legal services lawyers and how they ethically might allocate their time and resources among their clients. Part I of this Article describes the institutional terrain of legal services practice and introduces the concept of the lawyer as street-level bureaucrat, operating within a complex, high demand human services bureaucracy. Part II discusses the problems inherent in attempts to ration care within a subsidized law practice. The purpose of Part II is to reveal the practice tensions that establishment professional ethics fail to accommodate, and that form an underlying justification for a discussion of triage principles. Part …

Character And Context: What Virtue Theory Can Teach Us About A Prosecutor's Ethical Duty To "Seek Justice.", R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

A critical issue facing the criminal justice system today is how best to promote ethical behavior by public prosecutors. The legal profession has left much of a prosecutor’s day-to-day activity unregulated, in favor of a general, catch-all admonition to “seek justice.” In this article the author argues that professional norms are truly functional only if those working with a given ethical framework recognize the system’s implicit dependence on character. A code of professional conduct in which this dependence is not recognized is both contentless and corrupting. Building on the ethics of Aristotle and modern philosophers Alasdair MacIntyre and Bernard Williams, …

Toward A More Independent Grand Jury: Recasting And Enforcing The Prosecutor’S Duty To Disclose Exculpatory Evidence, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

This Article analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision in Williams, in which the Court struck down an attempt by the Tenth Circuit to impose an obligation on federal prosecutors to disclose substantial exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. The author discusses the contours of this case and the ethical underpinnings of a prosecutor’s disclosure obligations before the grand jury, and sets forth a new framework for consideration of such issues.

Professionalism: The Deep Theory, Daniel R. Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

Can our personal ethics and our professional ethics be in opposition? Our professional identity as lawyers is at the center of our personal morality. The legal profession is in crisis because we have lost sight of the deep theory of professionalism. This article focuses on our ultimate motivation for obeying rules, concentrating on three common categories: goal-based, rights-based, and duty-based theories. By examining these theories, the article argues that lawyers must turn away from the modern trend of goal instrumentalism and refocus legal practice on its humanistic roots.

Exceptions, Lawrence Raful

Lawrence Raful

No abstract provided.

Conflicts Of Interest: Slicing The Hot Potato Doctrine, John Leubsdorf

San Diego Law Review

This essay, which boasts of being the first law review article devoted to what professional responsibility insiders call the “hot potato doctrine,” will discuss some of the unanswered questions about the doctrine’s core principle: a firm may not turn a present client into a former client by “firing” the client in order to get the benefit of the more lenient conflict of interest rules that apply to former clients. Exactly how does this modify the rules laid down by the Model Rules of Professional Conduct governing conflicts of interest and withdrawal from representations? What is the justification for refusing to …

Modeling The American Lawyer Ethics System, James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Crisis In The Legal Profession: Don’T Mourn, Organize!, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.