Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Black Lives Matter And The Push For Colonial-Era Cultural Heritage Restitution, Kathryn Speckart

Catholic University Law Review

The influence of the Black Lives Matter movement extends into U.S. museums in the form of calls for “decolonization” of collections comprised of art and artifacts from Africa and other colonized areas. As a result, the accompanying legal and ethical questions surrounding these artifacts now figure prominently in the museum industry. This Comment analyzes why the current U.S. cultural heritage law framework does not accommodate colonial-era African artifacts. This is due to few of these artifacts being subject to legal claims under current laws, African artifacts not having protection as a special classification, and the lack of enforcement mechanisms in …

Conflicts Of Interest At An Organization’S Highest Authority: How The District Of Columbia’S Rules Of Professional Conduct Can Fail To Protect Private Organizations, Christopher Deubert

Catholic University Law Review

This Article examines how the District of Columbia’s incomplete incorporation of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct into its own Rules of Professional Conduct has created a scenario in which wrongdoing inside a private organization can flourish. In 2002, following the Enron scandal, the American Bar Association (ABA) revisited and revised its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The ABA nevertheless took a conservative route, rejecting rules long proposed by experts which would have permitted attorneys aware of corporate crimes, fraud, and other wrongdoing to report their concerns to individuals or entities outside the organization’s reporting structure. Additional scandals unfolded contemporaneous …

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 …

Establishing The Legal Framework To Regulate Quantum Computing Technology, Kaya Derose

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

State Spoliation Claims In Federal District Courts, Jeffrey A. Parness

Catholic University Law Review

The increasing amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) relevant to civil litigation, and the ease of their loss, caused federal lawmakers explicitly to address the possible consequences of certain pre-suit or post-suit ESI losses. These lawmakers acted in both 2006 and 2015 through Federal Civil Procedure (FRCP) 37(e). But they acted only on certain ESI. Their actions have prompted increasing attention to the significant risks of pre-suit and post-suit losses of all ESI, and of non-ESI, otherwise discoverable in civil actions. In addition, their actions have spurred increasing attention to the availability of substantive law claims involving spoliation of information …

The “Corporation Revolution” And The Professional Ethics Of Giving Advice On Executive Protection Issues, Sarah Helene Duggin, Shannon "A.J." Singleton, James D. Wing

Scholarly Articles

In today's law enforcement environment, business entities facing criminal investigations and possible indictment have little practical choice but to cooperate with authorities. Cooperation offers the opportunity to avoid a costly trial and attendant adverse reputational, financial, and morale impacts. Resolution of potential criminal charges, however, almost always requires entities to cooperate with law enforcement efforts to impose criminal liability on individual business executives.

While businesses and their executives once generally perceived their interests as closely aligned, the “Cooperation Revolution” of the last few decades has forced corporate boards and business executives to reassess their individual obligations and risks. In so …

The Attorney-Client Privilege And Former Employees, Douglas R. Richmond

Catholic University Law Review

Attorney-client relationships are infused with confidentiality, and the attorney-client privilege is critical to the protection of sensitive and important communications between clients and their lawyers. Organizational clients, like individuals, are entitled to assert the attorney-client privilege concerning communications that fall within its scope.

In the organizational context, a common problem is determining who among the entity’s employees speaks on its behalf, such that communications between the entity’s lawyers and those employees may be protected against discovery by the organization’s adversaries and other third parties. And, of course, as organizations experience the inevitable turnover in their workforces, another issue surfaces: when, …

Wrongful Incarceration Causes Substantial Bodily Harm: Why Lawyers Should Be Allowed To Breach Confidentiality To Help Exonerate The Innocent, Vania M. Smith

Catholic University Law Review

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC) governs the conduct of lawyers and provides the framework for how individual states and territories craft their rules. Rules regarding confidentiality have been central through the many iterations of these rules since their inception. Client confidentiality protections are critical to establishing and maintaining the public trust in the profession. Rule 1.6 of the MRPC gives a lawyer the opportunity to divulge a client confidence under varying circumstances, including the prevention of “substantial bodily harm”. To date, this has not resulted in a wide interpretation that this exception includes wrongful incarceration. This article seeks …

Augustine, Lawyers & The Lost Virtue Of Humility, Bruce P. Frohnen

Catholic University Law Review

The leading edge of legal scholarship and practice in recent decades has evinced a commitment to progressive politics at the expense of constitutional governance, the rule of law, and justice understood as vindication of the reasonable expectations of both the public and the parties to any given case or controversy. This article argues that renewed understanding of the virtue of humility, rooted in a genuine concern to do good according to one’s abilities, rights, and duties, is essential to the maintenance of decency in the legal profession and society as a whole. Such virtue is allowed, if not required, by …

Who Is The Client? Rethinking Professional Responsibility For Benefit Corporations, Joseph R. Pileri

Catholic University Law Review

A growing social enterprise movement has led companies to increasingly opt into the benefit corporation form, and those companies are hiring lawyers. Benefit corporations challenge the notion that corporate law’s primary focus is on furthering shareholder interests. While many have written about the benefit corporation with respect to corporate fiduciary law, this Article is the first to explore the form’s ethical implications for lawyers. Ethical obligations necessarily reflect substantive law governing client organizations; changes to the corporate form presented by benefit corporation legislation should reverberate in legal ethics. The legal profession, however, has not addressed how to lawyer to a …

Aba Model Rule 8.4(G) In The States, Josh Blackman

Catholic University Law Review

This essay will provide a brief overview of how the states have responded to

ABA Model Rule 8.4(g). Part I reviews opinions from four state attorneys

general who concluded that the rule is unconstitutional: Texas, South Carolina,

Louisiana, and Tennessee. Part II discusses the states that considered the rule

with modifications. Part III reviews the states that considered Rule 8.4(g) as

drafted. So far, only one state adopted the rule: Vermont. However, the process

is still not over, and other states are currently considering the rule.

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

Baring All: Legal Ethics And Confidentiality Of Electronically Stored Information In The Cloud, Whitney Morgan

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Connected State Of Things: A Lawyer’S Survival Guide In An Internet Of Things World, Antigone Peyton

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Talk Don’T Touch? Considerations For Children’S Attorneys On The Physical Touch Of Clients, Andrea L. Dennis

Catholic University Law Review

Forming a positive attorney-client relationship with a child is a complex process that involves many considerations. Although it offers guidance on effectively communicating and creating a safe environment, the legal system has neglected to form appropriate standards governing physical touch of juvenile clients. There are numerous benefits to physical touch of clients. However, a lack of guidance on the appropriate ways to use physical touch creates the risk negative effects will result from the touch. Drawing from the standards of other child-focused professions, this Article provides guidelines for attorneys contemplating using physical touch to develop a positive rapport with child …

Inmates’ E-Mails With Their Attorneys: Off-Limits For The Government?, Amelia H. Barry

Catholic University Law Review

The attorney-client privilege is vital to inmates who otherwise have limited opportunities for private communications in prison. Traditionally, inmates have only been able to communicate with their attorneys via in-person visits, phone calls, and mailed letters. As federal inmates have begun using e-mail to converse with their attorneys, courts have had to determine if these conversations are protected by the attorney-client privilege. This Comment discusses courts’ approaches to this question, many of which have found that inmates’ e-mail communications with their attorneys are not privileged because by using the federal prison e-mail system, which warns users that conversations can be …

A Good Rule, Poorly Written: How The Financial Crisis Highlighted The Inadequacy Of Iolta Rate Rules, Andrew Arthur

Catholic University Law Review

Interest on lawyer trust accounts (IOLTA) provide a substantial component of funding that is used to provide legal aid to needy individuals throughout the United States. However, IOLTA program revenues fluctuate with the deposit interest rates, which have remained near zero after the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis. The Comment examines IOLTA rate rules across the country, and the impact of reduces IOLTA revenues on legal aid programs. The Comment further asserts that IOLTA rate rules are not adequately designed to account for fluctuation in central bank interest rates, causing unanticipated problems for legal aid funding. Finally, the …

William Pincus: A Life In Service – Government, Philanthropy And Legal Education, J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy

Scholarly Articles

This article memorializes the life and accomplishments of William “Bill” Pincus. The article brings the reader through Mr. Pincus’s career accomplishments, from his humble beginnings in New York City, to his impressive career in civil service, culminating in his work with the Ford Foundation and the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility (CLEPR), where he spearheaded reforms in legal education. Mr. Pincus’s efforts were critical in establishing clinical legal education, drawing from his experiences both in law and government. Much of this article is derived from interviews of Mr. Pincus, conducted by the author, and provides an unprecedented insight …

Shame, Angry Judges, And The Social Media Effect, Maxine D. Goodman

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Prosecutor Prince: Misconduct, Accountability, And A Modest Proposal, H. Mitchell Caldwell

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Attorney Responsibility And Client Incapacity, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

This Article suggests what an attorney should consider when representing a client suspected by the attorney of having diminished capacity, anticipating diminished capacity, or a client anticipating a response to the legal dilemmas posed by aging. So too, this Article suggests what an attorney should consider when retained by the family members of an allegedly incapacitate person. After providing demographics regarding aging, this Article will specifically address the attorney-client relationship in the context of the Model Rules of the American Bar Association. Next, this Article will integrate the attorney's responsibility regarding the proper execution of a Last Will and Testament, …

Integrating Catholic Social Thought In Elder Law And Estate Planning Courses: Reflections On Law, Age And Ethics, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

A course in elder law or estate planning encompasses many of the most profound issues that arise in human life: the contemplation of mortality, ambivalent attitudes toward property and its proper distribution, complexities in family relationships, obligations to support loved ones, anticipation of physical or mental challenges, and reflections on one’s desired legacy to loved ones. Although there is much in the Catholic tradition and in the Scriptures themselves that speaks to these questions in an indirect way, this has not often been fully explored because this field may not, on its face, have an obvious connection to religious tradition. …

Celebrating Clepr’S 40th Anniversary: The Early Development Of The Clinical Legal Education And Legal Ethics Instruction In U.S. Law Schools, J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy

Scholarly Articles

This article introduces the essays, articles, and remarks celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility (CLEPR). The Section on Professional Responsibility and Section on Clinical Legal Education of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) jointly sponsored a half-day program at the 2009 AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, in recognition of the fortieth anniversary of CLEPR and the one hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of the American Bar Association Canons of Professional Ethics, the ABA's first effort at establishing a private law of lawyering to govern its members. After …

Researching Legal Ethics, Stephen E. Young

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Buried Bodies Case: Alive And Well After Thirty Years, Lisa G. Lerman, Frank H. Armani, Thomas D. Morgan, Monroe H. Freedman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

A Double Standard For Lawyer Dishonesty: Billing Fraud Versus Misappropriation, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

In this Article, I examine the dishonest billing practices alleged to have occurred and the analysis of the dishonesty by the Hearing Committee and the court. I offer a critique of the investigation of the case, the findings of fact and the legal standards applied. I compare this billing fraud case to the leading case on misappropriation of client funds in the District of Columbia. I argue that the decision-makers (Hearing Committee, Board on Professional Responsibility, and court of appeals) have gone to great lengths to avoid addressing the very grave dishonesty that led to this disciplinary matter. I speculate …

First Do No Harm: Law Professor Misconduct Toward Law Students, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Teaching Ethics In And Outside Of Law Schools: What Works And What Doesn’T, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No matter the setting or the audience, certain approaches are more likely than others to engage the students in learning the relevant law and exploring the array of dilemmas that lawyers encounter in practice. Some methods are more likely than others to help students to increase their ability to recognize ethical dilemmas and to understand the institutional dynamics and economic pressures that lead some lawyers to rationalize unethical conduct. On the other hand, some approaches to teaching ethics are almost certain to fail, to produce boredom, animosity, cynicism or alienation among participants. What follows is a short inventory of some …

A Legal Career For All Seasons: Remembering St. Thomas More’S Vocation, Veryl Victoria Miles

Scholarly Articles

The vast majority of the work taking place in most law schools is the preparation of law students for the practice of law; namely, to teach legal theory and doctrine, legal analysis, writing, and advocacy. In sum, the goal of most law schools is to teach the many different skills required in law practice and the professional rules of legal ethics. What appears to be lacking in the preparation of future lawyers are lessons on how to incorporate this vast amount of specialized learning and skill in ways that will be harmonious with the personal, moral, and ethical values that …

Greed Among American Lawyers, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.