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An Essay On Teaching Professional Responsibility, L. Ray Patterson

Northern Illinois University Law Review

There is, I argue, need for a new approach to teaching law students how to become professionally responsible lawyers. The core problem in teaching the professional responsibility course is that it is a course in lawyer's law that treats only the ethical rules and ignores the fact that procedural and malpractice rules are also relevant. If, however, the professional responsibility course becomes a course in lawyer's law, it follows that it must encompass rules of procedure, rules of malpractice, and rules of ethics (which should be identified as what they are, rules of discipline). There is, however, a development that …