Law Commons^™

The Role Of Business Counsel As Compliance Gatekeepers: Toward Understanding And Combatting Reckless Disregard For Legal And Ethical Compliance In Business Entities, Joan Macleod Heminway

Scholarly Works

Sometimes, business entity clients and their principals do not seek, accept, or heed the advice of their lawyers. In fact, sometimes, they expressly disregard a lawyer’s instructions on how to proceed. In certain cases, the client expressly rejects the lawyer’s advice. However, some business constituents who take action contrary to the advice of legal counsel may fall out of compliance incrementally over time or signal compliance and yet (paradoxically) act in a noncompliant manner. These seemingly ineffectual varieties of the lawyer/client relationship are frustrating to the lawyer.

This short article aims to explain why representatives of business entities who consider …

In Search Of Effective Ethics & Compliance Programs, Maurice Stucke

Scholarly Works

The U.S. Sentencing Commission's Organizational Guidelines for over twenty years have offered firms a significant financial incentive to develop an ethical organizational culture. Nonetheless, corporate crime persists. Too many ethics programs remain ineffective.

As this Article explores, the Guidelines' current approach is not working. The evidence, including sentencing data over the past twenty years, reveals that few firms have effective ethics and compliance programs. Nor is there much hope that the Guidelines' incentive will induce companies, after the economic crisis, to become more ethical.

The problem is not attributable to three assumptions underlying the Guidelines. The empirical research, while still …