Law Commons^™

Confidentiality Explained: The Dialogue Approach To Discussing Confidentiality With Clients, Elisia M. Klinka, Russell G. Pearce

San Diego Law Review

This Article offers an alternative dialogue approach. Rather than view the issue of explaining confidentiality either as a strategy for gaining client trust or an obligation necessary to comply with certain legal obligations, we propose understanding it as a key element in creating a relationship of dialogue grounded in honesty and mutual respect.

In doing so, we build on the work of the late Fred Zacharias, whose scholarship in this area provides both pathbreaking empirical insights and unwavering commitment to respecting client dignity. Among Zacharias’s contributions are his oft-cited empirical study suggesting that lawyers wrongly assume that clients would not …

Taking The Ethical Duty To Self Seriously: An Essay In Memory Of Fred Zacharias, Samuel J. Levine

San Diego Law Review

This essay delineates a three-tiered approach that incorporates not only the lawyer’s duty to the client and to society, but also the lawyer’s obligation to take into consideration the duty to self, which includes fidelity to the lawyer’s personal ethical values and commitments. In addition, rather than placing the various interests in hierarchical opposition, requiring that one duty invariably prevail over the others, the three-tiered approach looks to consider ways in which competing interests might balance or, at times, be reconciled with one another. To illustrate the three-tiered approach to the lawyer’s ethical obligations, this essay focuses on the lawyer’s …

Confidentiality And Common Sense: Insights From Philosophy, Thomas Morawetz

San Diego Law Review

In this Article, I will consider two aspects of the controversy that help explain why it is static. I will consider the significance of empirical evidence that lawyers and clients find the rules morally troubling. Zacharias plausibly assumes that such evidence carries compelling weight. I will also look at the nature of morality itself and the extent to which professional rules should be expected to conform to morality.

Ethically Handling The Receipt Of Possibly Privileged Information., James M. Fischer

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Inadvertently sent e-mails that contain privileged information, material negligently included in a discovery response, or employer's documents taken by a whistle-blower all share a common theme-the materials were not intended to be disclosed to the opposing party. This Article makes two contentions. First, all unintended disclosures should be treated under a single standard that asks whether the privilege holder exercised reasonable care in maintaining the confidentiality of the materials. Second, with respect to the receiving lawyer's professional obligations, a lawyer who receives materials that may be privileged should be allowed to read the materials: (1) to determine whether the materials …

Legal Malpractice Litigation And The Duty To Report Misconduct., Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Lawyers participating in legal malpractice litigation sometimes encounter evidence of serious disciplinary rule violations. Whether, and how soon, those lawyers are required to report this information to grievance authorities is a question that has received little attention from courts and scholars, despite the fact that most states have mandatory reporting rules. The dilemma for lawyers serving as testifying experts is particularly troublesome because nonreporting may result not only in discipline, but testimonial impeachment. The better view is that an expert in a pending case ordinarily has no mandatory obligation to report misconduct. This conclusion is supported by an analysis of …