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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons™

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Professional Ethics

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Articles 31 - 60 of 82

Full-Text Articles in Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

The Academic Expert Before Congress: Observations And Lessons From Bill Van Alstyne's Testimony, Neal Devins Jan 2005

The Academic Expert Before Congress: Observations And Lessons From Bill Van Alstyne's Testimony, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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Prosecutorial Ethics And Victims' Rights: The Prosecutor's Duty Of Neutrality, Bennett L. Gershman Jan 2005

Prosecutorial Ethics And Victims' Rights: The Prosecutor's Duty Of Neutrality, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In recent years, enhanced legal protections for victims has caused victims to become increasingly involved in the criminal justice process, often working closely with prosecutors. In this Article, Professor Gershman analyzes the potential challenges to prosecutors' ethical duties that victims'participation may bring and suggests appropriate responses.

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U.S. Legal Ethics: The Coming Of Age Of Global And Comparative Perspectives, Laurel Terry Jan 2005

U.S. Legal Ethics: The Coming Of Age Of Global And Comparative Perspectives, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Article reviews the influence of comparative law during the past 100 years and then divides the last 100 years into three distinct comparative legal ethics eras. The first era consists of the time period between 1904 and 1973, during which there was both domestic and comparative legal ethics scholarship, although a relatively small amount compared to later years. The second time period, which dates from 1974, when legal ethics became a required course, to 1997, represents the coming of age of domestic legal ethics scholarship. This time period also included a significant amount of legal ethics scholarship employing a …

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"Lawyers For Lawyers": The Emerging Role Of Law Firm Legal Counsel, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2005

"Lawyers For Lawyers": The Emerging Role Of Law Firm Legal Counsel, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Tax Advisor-Client Privileges And Circular 230 Revisions, B. John Williams, Stephan F. Tucker Nov 2004

Tax Advisor-Client Privileges And Circular 230 Revisions, B. John Williams, Stephan F. Tucker

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

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Lawyer Marketing: An Ethics Guide, Thomas E. Spahn Nov 2004

Lawyer Marketing: An Ethics Guide, Thomas E. Spahn

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

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The Tenuous Case For Conscience, Steven D. Smith Sep 2004

The Tenuous Case For Conscience, Steven D. Smith

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

If there is any single theme that has provided the foundation of modern liberalism and has infused our more specific constitutional commitments to freedom of religion and freedom of speech, that theme is probably “freedom of conscience.” But some observers also perceive a progressive cheapening of conscience– even a sort of degradation. Such criticisms suggest the need for a contemporary rethinking of conscience. When we reverently invoke “conscience,” do we have any idea what we are talking about? Or are we just exploiting a venerable theme for rhetorical purposes without any clear sense of what “conscience” is or why it …

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Prosecutorial Neutrality, Fred C. Zacharias, Bruce A. Green Sep 2004

Prosecutorial Neutrality, Fred C. Zacharias, Bruce A. Green

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

This Article examines the ideal of prosecutorial neutrality in an effort to determine its value as a measure of prosecutorial conduct. Commentators often have assumed that prosecutors should be “neutral” in making discretionary decisions or have criticized prosecutors for decisions that purportedly demonstrate a lack of neutrality. The notion of prosecutorial neutrality recalls the traditional conception of prosecutors as “quasi-judicial” officers and emphasizes the distinction between prosecutors and lawyers for private parties. But the specific meaning attributed to prosecutorial neutrality has varied depending on the context. The term refers to diverse, and potentially inconsistent, views of appropriate prosecutorial conduct. The …

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Understanding Recent Trends In Federal Regulation Of Lawyers, Fred C. Zacharias Sep 2004

Understanding Recent Trends In Federal Regulation Of Lawyers, Fred C. Zacharias

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Federal lawmakers increasingly have taken actions that contradict, interfere with, or preempt state regulation of lawyers. Most of the commentary regarding the recent federal actions has focused on whether individual regulations are substantively justified. It is, however, worth considering more broadly whether and how the phenomenon of increasing federal regulation is symptomatic of changing views of appropriate professional regulation. This article considers a series of theoretical analyses of the increasing federal regulation -- themes and trends that the increasing regulation might represent or epitomize. Whenever the bar or other commentators criticize developments in professional regulation, it is important to place …

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Lawyers As Gatekeepers, Fred C. Zacharias Sep 2004

Lawyers As Gatekeepers, Fred C. Zacharias

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Three recent legislative and regulatory initiatives -- the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2003 amendments to Model Rules 1.6 and 1.13, and the Gatekeeper Initiative – all seek to enlist the assistance of lawyers in thwarting crime. Outraged opponents have relied on flamboyant rhetoric. They challenge the notion that lawyers should act as gatekeepers – which some of the opponents deem equivalent to operating like the “secret police in Eastern European countries.” This article makes a simple, and ultimately uncontroversial, point. Lawyers are gatekeepers, and always have been. Whatever one’s position on the merits of the specific reforms currently being proposed, it …

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Mental Disorder And The Civil/Criminal Distinction, Grant H. Morris Sep 2004

Mental Disorder And The Civil/Criminal Distinction, Grant H. Morris

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

This essay, written as part of a symposium issue to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the University of San Diego Law School, discusses the evaporating distinction between sentence-serving convicts and mentally disordered nonconvicts who are involved in, or who were involved in, the criminal process–people we label as both bad and mad. By examining one Supreme Court case from each of the decades that follow the opening of the University of San Diego School of Law, the essay demonstrates how the promise that nonconvict mentally disordered persons would be treated equally with other civilly committed mental patients was made and …

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Lawyers In The Moral Maze , Mark A. Sargent Mar 2004

Lawyers In The Moral Maze , Mark A. Sargent

Working Paper Series

This article overviews the various forms of lawyer complicity in illegal or immoral behavior by corporate managers in the corporate scandals of the last three years, but focuses primarily on the question of why lawyers so often seemed willing to engage in or ignore behavior that presumably violated their own personal moral codes (whether religious or secular) as well as their professional role morality. The article draws on Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes (1988) for an answer derived from the sociology of corporate bureaucracies. Jackall's case studies of corporate managers found that managers adhered to the moral "rules-in-use" developed in their …

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Lawyers In The Perfect Storm, Mark A. Sargent Oct 2003

Lawyers In The Perfect Storm, Mark A. Sargent

Working Paper Series

The multiple corporate collapses and scandals of recent years, for which "Enron" is a convenient shorthand, resulted from a perfect storm in which regulatory oversight, the law of fiduciary duty, gatekeepers, market discipline, and contractual incentives all failed to prevent gross self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and deception, or themselves produced perverse consequences. The story of this simultaneous failure of the structures in place since the New Deal and before, has received considerable attention in both the popular and scholarly literature, but is summarized here to provide a context for consideration of the contributions that lawyers made to the perfect storm. …

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Law And Justice In The Twenty-First Century, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2002

Law And Justice In The Twenty-First Century, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Ethical Tax Problems In Tax Practice, L. Paige Marvel, Paula M. Junghans Dec 2001

Ethical Tax Problems In Tax Practice, L. Paige Marvel, Paula M. Junghans

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

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From Buchanan To Button: Legal Ethics And The Naacp (Part Ii), Susan Carle Jan 2001

From Buchanan To Button: Legal Ethics And The Naacp (Part Ii), Susan Carle

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

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The Prosecutor's Duty To Truth, Bennett L. Gershman Jan 2001

The Prosecutor's Duty To Truth, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article discusses the prosecutor's duty to refrain from conduct that impedes the search for truth. A prosecutor may impede the truth-finding process in several ways: (1) distorting the truth by attacking the defendant's character, misleading and misrepresenting facts, and engaging in inflammatory conduct; (2) subverting the truth by making false statements and presenting false evidence; (3) suppressing the truth by failing to disclose potentially truth-enhancing evidence or obstructing defense access to potentially truth-enhancing evidence; and (4) other truth-disserving conduct that exploits defense counsel's misconduct and mistakes and prevents introduction of potentially truth-serving defenses. Part I also …

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Just Being A Lawyer: Reflections On The Legal Ethics Of A President Under Impeachment, John A. Humbach Jan 2001

Just Being A Lawyer: Reflections On The Legal Ethics Of A President Under Impeachment, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The core vice that Posner finds in Clinton’s efforts to contain the truth of the Lewinsky affair is very similar to a fault the public perceives in the behavior of lawyers generally. Namely, lawyers often try to obscure or distract from factual truth order to prevent the law from applying as intended. Most of this avoidance behavior is technically lawful because, for pragmatic reasons, allowances for such avoidance have been deliberately built into the criminal laws against perjury, obstruction of justice and the like. These allowances are a compromise that the law makes with morals so its criminal prohibitions will …

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Abuse Of Confidentiality And Fabricated Controversy: Two Proposals, John A. Humbach Jan 2000

Abuse Of Confidentiality And Fabricated Controversy: Two Proposals, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article is framed as a discussion of two proposals for modifying the Model Rules. One would declare fabricated controversy to be out of bounds as a tactical tool. The other would expressly affirm that it is an abuse of confidentiality for lawyers to engage in strategies of partial-truth advocacy, to assert partial truths while deliberately holding back other information that the lawyer should know is needed in order not to mislead others. Both of these techniques, fabrication of controversy and partial-truth advocacy, tend to undercut the trial as a “search for truth” and both interfere with negotiations as a …

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What Do You Do When You Meet A "Walking Violation Of The Sixth Amendment" If You're Trying To Put That Lawyer's Client In Jail?, Vanessa Merton Jan 2000

What Do You Do When You Meet A "Walking Violation Of The Sixth Amendment" If You're Trying To Put That Lawyer's Client In Jail?, Vanessa Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For the purpose of this article, the relevance of my experience as a criminal defense attorney is this: if ever one might expect to find a prosecutor inclined to err on the side of fairness of process and protecting the rights of defendants, it ought to be me. Also, for more than twenty years, I have been something of a professional ethicist--as research fellow, teacher, staff member of an ethics center, chair and/or member of several institutional review boards, pro bono trial counsel to a disciplinary committee, ethics consultant, and expert witness--and, therefore, one might think, especially susceptible to the …

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Changing Structure In The Practice Of Law, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2000

Changing Structure In The Practice Of Law, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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The National Association Of Honest Lawyers: An Essay On Honesty, "Lawyer Honesty" And Public Trust In The Legal System, John A. Humbach Jan 1999

The National Association Of Honest Lawyers: An Essay On Honesty, "Lawyer Honesty" And Public Trust In The Legal System, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The growing public disquiet about lawyer ethics is not mainly because people think lawyers neglect their professional standards. Rather, the main problem is the belief among lawyers that the duty of loyalty to clients requires a lawyer to mislead. Specifically, the ethical duty of confidentiality and the ethical duty of zealous advocacy are interpreted together to mean that lawyers must conceal some facts (‘confidentiality‘) while forcefully asserting others. This mis-coupling of these two key ethical duties has an inevitable tendency to produce a kind of partial-truth advocacy in which the lawyer knowingly distracts attention from the truth and fosters misconceptions …

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Lawyers, Accountants, And The Battle To Own Professional Services, Gary A. Munneke Jan 1999

Lawyers, Accountants, And The Battle To Own Professional Services, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Competition between lawyers and accountants is not a new concept. At various times during the past century, these two professions have clashed over the scope and definition of their respective services. Lawyers traditionally have relied upon a professional monopoly to provide “legal” services as a device to exclude nonlawyers from the practice of law. Supported by statutes in many jurisdictions making the unauthorized practice of law a criminal offense and ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from assisting in the unauthorized practice of law, lawyers have always been able to identify some inner sanctum of professional services that only they could handle. …

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Review Of "Trying Cases: A Life In The Law" By Haliburtan Fales Ii, Jay C. Carlisle Jan 1999

Review Of "Trying Cases: A Life In The Law" By Haliburtan Fales Ii, Jay C. Carlisle

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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A Nightmare On Main Street (Part Mxl): Freddie Joins An Accounting Firm, Gary A. Munneke Jan 1999

A Nightmare On Main Street (Part Mxl): Freddie Joins An Accounting Firm, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The subject of multidisciplinary practice (“MDP”) has intrigued me for well over a decade. The topic has led me into new areas of research, and sometimes into the cross hairs of colleagues in the legal profession. My views have not always represented the mainstream of thinking among lawyers, and that is reflected in the title of my talk today: “A Nightmare on Main Street (Part MXL): Freddie Joins an Accounting Firm.”

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Lawyers' Duty To Do Justice: A New Look At The History Of The 1908 Canons, Susan Carle Jan 1999

Lawyers' Duty To Do Justice: A New Look At The History Of The 1908 Canons, Susan Carle

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

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Mental Culpability And Prosecutorial Misconduct, Bennett L. Gershman Jan 1998

Mental Culpability And Prosecutorial Misconduct, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that a prosecutor's intent is always relevant to the courts' analysis of misconduct, and that the courts should always consider a prosecutor's intent in determining whether a rule was violated and whether the verdict was prejudiced. Part II of this Article examines the use of the objective test to analyze a prosecutor's trial conduct. Part II offers several reasons courts give for avoiding inquiry into a prosecutor's mental culpability, analyzes those reasons, and concludes that although the application of an objective test is sufficient to correct misconduct in some instances, it does not foreclose application of a …

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The Standard Of Care In Legal Malpractice: Do The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct Define It?, Gary A. Munneke Jan 1998

The Standard Of Care In Legal Malpractice: Do The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct Define It?, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article will review existing case law and commentary, and propose a new formula for application of rules of professional conduct in determining the standard of care to which attorneys should be held in malpractice cases. The authors will argue in favor of establishing a position that state rules of professional conduct create certain specific standards of lawyer behavior that constitute a minimum standard of conduct and a minimum standard of care for every individual attorney practicing in each jurisdiction.

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Ethical Problems In Tax Practice, L. Paige Marvel, Paula M. Junghans Dec 1997

Ethical Problems In Tax Practice, L. Paige Marvel, Paula M. Junghans

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

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From "Moral Stupidity" To Professional Responsibility, Thomas D. Eisele Jan 1997

From "Moral Stupidity" To Professional Responsibility, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Within the context-even, the challenge-presented by the first chapter of Seymour Wishman's book, Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, we symposiasts have been invited to say something about the teaching of courses which in law school go under the titles, "Legal Ethics," "Professional Ethics," or "Professional Responsibility." This last is the
title of a two-credit course that I teach, in what I take to be a fairly traditional form, over the span of a semester at the University of Cincinnati. In this essay, I want to talk about the teaching of such a course; not about how I manage to teach …

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