Professional Responsibility and Regulation, 2d
Authors:
Rhode, Deborah L. / Hazard Jr, Geoffrey C.
Edition:
2nd
Copyright Date:
2007
19 chapters
have results for professional responsibility and regulation
Chapter V. Basic Professional Norms 35 results (showing 5 best matches)
- A. Responsibilities as a Profession: Independence in Professional Regulation and Professional Judgment
- The legal profession’s relative autonomy carries with it special responsibilities of self-government. The profession has a responsibility to assure that its regulations are conceived in the public interest and not in furtherance of parochial or selfinterested concerns of the bar. Every lawyer is responsible for observance of the Rules of Professional Conduct. A lawyer should also aid in securing their observance by other lawyers. Neglect of these responsibilities compromises the independence of the profession and the public interest which it serves.
- The ethical rules governing American lawyers express several core values that guide legal practice. Those values and their corresponding obligations include independence, competence, loyalty, confidentiality, candor, and integrity in personal and professional conduct. These obligations extend to clients, courts, and the public. Similar responsibilities are required in other legal systems throughout the world, although their implementation takes somewhat different forms and reflects different priorities.
- In addition, as Chapter VI notes, many jurisdictions have established voluntary civility codes specifying further responsibilities for lawyers as officers of the court. These codes range from matters of decorum (such as dress and punctuality) to trial tactics (such as bullying witnesses or opposing counsel). How much effect these aspirational standards have on behavior is an open question. But they clearly serve an important admonitory function in reaffirming the bar’s commitment to basic professional norms of propriety and integrity.
- A primary norm of professional ethics is independence. It has two dimensions. The first involves ensuring the bar’s freedom from government control. As the Preamble to the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct notes, “An independent legal profession is an important force in preserving government under law, for abuse of legal authority is more readily challenged by a profession whose members are not dependent on government for the right to practice.” Experience under totalitarian regimes makes clear that a bar that is overly subject to state regulation and control will be unable adequately to protect individual rights, check official misconduct, or insure due process. Lawyers defending unpopular clients and causes require some safeguards from political backlash.
- Open Chapter
Table of Contents 23 results (showing 5 best matches)
- A. Responsibilities as a Profession: Independence in Professional Regulation and Professional Judgment
- B. Professional Norms: Law, Morality, and Legal Ethics
- B. Bar Regulatory Structures and Professional Associations
- B. Responsibilities to Clients: Loyalty, Competence, and Confidentiality
- C. Responsibilities to the System of Justice and the Rule of Law
- Open Chapter
Title Page 3 results
Chapter I. The Profession and Its Regulation 45 results (showing 5 best matches)
- A key concept in a book about the regulation of lawyers is “legal ethics.” The term is often used interchangeably with “professional responsibility” to describe the bar’s governing norms. A threshold question is what is the “ethics” in legal ethics, and how is it related to the law of lawyering.
- Contemporary definitions of professions generally emphasize their special expertise and ethical responsibilities, which give rise to other defining features, such as self-regulation, prescribed qualifications, codes of conduct, occupational associations, and monopolies over certain work. American lawyers have long prided themselves on being a profession. According to a prominent report by the American Bar Association (ABA), professionals are those who are “pursuing a learned art … in the spirit of public service.” By the same token, lawyers also have long been concerned about a loss of professionalism and the “decline of law into a business.” Over a century ago, one American commentator captured widespread views in observing that the bar had lost its “fine sense of dignity” and had become “contaminated with the spirit of commerce.”
- The introductory provision governing the “scope” of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct asserts that they are “not designed to be a basis for civil liability.” The Preliminary Statement to the Code of Professional Responsibility included a similar disclaimer.
- In the aftermath of the settlement of a government antitrust suit against the ABA, its ethics committee issued an opinion declaring that its rulings were not binding on lawyers. ABA Comm. on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Informal Op. 1420 (1978).
- One of bar associations’ most significant activities has been formulating ethical codes that are adopted by courts. The ABA is responsible for the three model codes that have formed the basis for states’ ethical rules. The Canons of Ethics (1908), the Code of Professional Responsibility (1970, amended 1981), and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (1983, amended 2003). By 2005, the supreme courts in all but six states, including California, had adopted standards based on the Model Rules, generally after consultation with state bar organizations. California has a unique system that grants its Board of Bar Governors statutory power to promulgate rules directly, subject to approval by the California Supreme Court. That court has adopted Rules of Professional Conduct that draw on the ABA Code but are in some respects different. The California legislature has also adopted a broad Business and Professions Code that has provisions applicable to lawyers.
- Open Chapter
Epilogue 4 results
- These trends in legal practice generate widespread concerns but little consensus on solutions. In a bar that is increasingly diverse in background and practice setting, issues of professional responsibility are increasingly divisive. One result has been a rise of multiple, sometimes inconsistent, forms of regulation. Some states have departed from the ABA’s model ethical codes; legislatures and agencies have become more willing to step in where other oversight structures fall short. This lack of uniformity poses further challenges for a profession whose work frequently crosses jurisdictional borders.
- Professional regulation in the twenty-first century confronts unprecedented challenges. Competition and commercialism are increasing; collegiality and civility are headed in the opposite direction. As the bar grows in size and specialization, its sense of common purpose and its reliance on informal reputational sanctions become harder to sustain. While these changes have intensified the need for formal regulation, other trends in legal markets have made effective enforcement difficult to achieve. As more of lawyers’ work crosses jurisdictional boundaries, traditional statebased oversight structures face new constraints. As competition within and across professions grows more intense, the pressure to compromise competing values escalates as well. Further challenges involve the distribution of legal services. The forces of business and professional competition yield a “survival of the fittest” for lawyers who serve clients of means or who adapt practice forms to produce sufficient fee...
- Yet the American bar has always adapted to meet the nation’s pressing needs, and its own regulatory problems should be no exception. In earlier eras, issues of professional responsibility may have attracted little systematic attention, but contemporary lawyers are acutely conscious of problems in the distribution of legal services and the conditions of legal practice. Today’s lawyers are also aware that if they do not actively seek solutions, others may do so for them. If the bar is to justify its regulatory independence, it must address the issues that this book has explored.
- Lawyers are surely equal to that task. Leaders of the legal profession have been at the forefront of every major social reform movement in the nation’s history. The challenge now is to channel that leadership inward and to make legal ethics a priority, both in principle and in practice.
- Open Chapter
Chapter XII. Competence and Discipline 120 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Barrie Althoff, “Ethics and the Law: Lawyer Disciplinary Sanctions,” Wa. St. B. News, Jan. 2002, at 1; Carrie Menkel–Meadow, “Private Lives and Professional Responsibilities? The Relationship of Personal Morality to Lawyering and Professional Ethics,” 21 Pace L. Rev. 365 (2001); Deborah L. Rhode, “Moral Character as a Professional Credential,” 94 Yale L.J. 491, 551–54 (1985).
- Zacharias, supra note 23, at 241, n. 15; John Mixon & Robert P. Schuwerk, “The Personal Dimension of Professional Responsibility,” 58 Law and Contemp. Probs. 87, 96 (1995).
- John Leubsdorf, “Legal Malpractice and Professional Responsibility,” 48 Rutgers L. Rev. 101, 111–19 (1995). For the conventional standard, see Charles W. Wolfram, “A Cautionary Tale: Fiduciary Breach as Legal Malpractice,” 34 Hofstra L. Rev. 689, 716–19 (2006).
- The Committee on Professional Responsibility, “Discipline of Law Firms,” 48 The Record of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York 628 (1993); Tanina Rostain, “Partners and Power: The Role of Law Firm Organizational Factors in Attorney Misconduct,” 19 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 281 (2006); Ted Schneyer, “Professional Discipline for Law Firms?,” 77 Cornell L. Rev. 1 (1991).
- A threshold challenge in responding to professional incompetence lies in identifying the problem to be addressed. Definitions of competence in bar ethical rules and reported decisions are formulated at high levels of abstraction. The Model Rules of Professional Conduct require “reasonable diligence and promptness” and “the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.” Rule 1.1 and Rule 1.3. The ABA’s Code of Professional Responsibility prohibits “neglect” and mandates “preparation adequate in the circumstances” DR 6–101(A). Both the Model Rules and the Code also provide that lawyers who lack sufficient expertise in the field may accept employment if they associate an experienced lawyer or expect to become qualified through necessary study. Rule 1.1, Comment; DR ...Ethical Considerations add the qualification, missing in the Disciplinary Rules and Model Rules, that the additional preparation should not result in “unreasonable...
- Open Chapter
Chapter X. Regulating the Market for Legal Services 155 results (showing 5 best matches)
- As the preceding discussion indicated, one of the greatest challenges in regulating the contemporary market for legal services involves multijurisdictional practice. The bar’s longstanding position, codified in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the Code of Professional Responsibility, is that a “lawyer shall not … practice law in a jurisdiction where doing so violates the regulation of the legal profession in that jurisdiction.” Model Rule 5.5. Accord DR 3–101(b). Under Model Rule 8.5, lawyers are subject to discipline in any jurisdiction where they provide legal services in violation of local ethics rules.
- D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 5.4 provides that lawyers may practice with nonlawyer partners who assist the organization in providing legal services, provided that these individuals abide by bar ethical rules and that lawyers undertake the same responsibility for these activities as if the participants were lawyers.
- To the extent that advertising regulation poses a conflict between professional and public interests, it also raises a more fundamental question: who should decide where to strike the balance. Should the organized bar play the dominant role, particularly given the low percentage of members with a personal stake in mass media communication and the high percentage of complaints about advertising, typically around 90 percent, that come from other lawyers? Some commentators believe that current restrictions reflect class biases and make it harder to reach consumers of limited means. One proposed alternative would be to place oversight responsibility in more neutral authorities such as consumer protection agencies.
- Controversy then shifted to the states, and by the turn of the twenty-first century, virtually every jurisdiction was considering the issue. A cottage industry of commentary also emerged. Analysis centered not simply on how to structure professional services, but also on how to define and pursue professional values in an increasingly competitive global market. Recent scandals involving accounting practices fueled further disputes. To some commentators, the misconduct in cases like Enron reflected conflicts of interest between accountants’ audit and consulting functions and demonstrated why lawyers should keep their distance. To other commentators, these conflicts of interest underscored the need for tighter regulation of competing professionals who were employing a growing number of lawyers and supplying an increasing volume of law-related services. Congress partly responded to that need with the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which prohibits registered public accounting firms that...
- The existing system of lawyer regulation has costs for clients. For example, out of concern for jurisdictional restrictions, lawyers may decline to provide services that they are able to render skillfully and ethically…. Further, even if lawyers felt free to ignore UPL laws in areas where there is a professional consensus that the laws are outmoded and there appears to be a tacit understanding that they will not be enforced, it is undesirable to retain the laws as written, rather than amending them to accord with contemporary understandings and practices that serve clients well. Keeping antiquated laws on the books breeds public disrespect for the law, and this is especially so where the laws relate to the conduct of lawyers, for whom there is a professional imperative to uphold the law.
- Open Chapter
Chapter XI. Qualifications for the Bar 155 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Although these initiatives resulted in substantial improvements, current approaches still fall short. Most law schools relegate professional responsibility to a single required course, which focuses largely on rules of conduct. This approach often leaves out crucial issues, such as those concerning access to justice, the conditions of practice, and the adequacy of bar regulatory processes. Moreover, ethical issues arise in every legal field, and the failure to address them throughout the curricula sends a negative message that no single course can counteract. Faculty who treat professional responsibility as someone else’s responsibility encourage future practitioners to do the same.
- A further limitation in legal education involves its treatment of professional responsibility. In 1974, largely in response to lawyers’ involvement in illegal Watergate activities, the ABA mandated that accredited schools provide some instruction in professional responsibility. A growing number of states also began to require such instruction as a condition of admission to practice, and bar examinations increased their coverage of ethical issues.
- Professional Responsibility and Pro Bono Service
- Such evidence reveals important limits on the potential contributions of professional responsibility courses, but it is not a reason to avoid integrated coverage of the subject in law school curricula. Most psychological research finds that, despite the importance of situational pressures, moral judgment has some impact on moral behavior. actions can be critical in shaping conduct, and education can affect those evaluative processes. It can also make individuals aware of how economic and peer pressures, structures of authority, and diffusion of responsibility skew moral judgment.
- Deborah L. Rhode, “The Professional Responsibilities of Professors,” 51 J. Legal Educ. 158, 165 (2001); Deborah L. Rhode, “Ethics by the Pervasive Method,” 42 J. Legal Educ. 31 (1992).
- Open Chapter
Chapter VII. Transactional Practice 155 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Formal Opinion 06–439 by the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (2006) similarly concluded that under Rule 4.1, “puffing” and “posturing” concerning settlement points and the strengths of parties’ positions are not “ordinarily” considered factual statements on which opposing parties can justifiably rely.
- The fact that most of lawyers’ work occurs outside the structure of court procedure has obvious ethical significance. That point was underscored a half-century ago in a prominent Joint Conference Report on Professional Responsibility by the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools. As the Report noted:
- Compare Robert Gordon, “A New Role for Lawyers?: The Corporate Counselor after Enron,” 35 Conn. L. Rev. 1185 (2003) and William Simon, “After Confidentiality: Rethinking the Professional Responsibilities of the Business Lawyer,” Ford. L. Rev. (2006); with Steven L. Schwarcz, “The Limits of Lawyering: Legal Opinions in Structured Finance,” 84 Tex. L. Rev. 1 (2005).
- Lon L. Fuller & John D. Randall, “Professional Responsibility: Report to the Joint Conference,” 44 ABA J. 1159, 1161 (1958).
- To address such concerns, federal, state, and local legislation regulates the activities of former public officials. For example, the Ethics in Government Act, 18 U.S.C. § 207, permanently prohibits former executive branch employees (including lawyers) from representing any person on matters in which they participated “personally and substantially” while in office. The Act also provides for a two year “cooling off” period by prohibiting a former executive branch employee from making any communication to, or appearance before, a federal agency or court with the intent to influence a matter actually pending within a year preceding the employee’s termination of employment. The Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.11, like its predecessor DR 9–101(B) of the Code of Professional Responsibility, similarly bars former government lawyers from representing private clients on matters in which the lawyer had participated personally and substantially while serving in public office unless...
- Open Chapter
Chapter IX. Access to Justice 93 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Although the bar has long supported pro bono in principle, its commitment in practice has been more qualified. The Model Code of Professional Responsibility included only aspirational references to lawyers’ “basic responsibility” to assist those unable to pay for legal services. Ethical Consideration 2–25. No Disciplinary Rule reinforced this responsibility, and the bar’s internalized commitments were uneven at best. One representative mid–1970s study found that lawyers’ average contribution was under 6 percent of billable hours and only about 5 percent of this work went to assist the poor; the vast majority of pro bono assistance went to friends, relatives, employees, bar associations, and organizations serving middle or upper-income constituencies, such as Jaycees, Little Leagues, and symphonies.
- Rhode, supra note 1, at 128, 132. For examples of efforts to challenge indigent defense systems see ABA, supra note 27, at 33–34. For an ABA ethics opinion maintaining that court-appointed lawyers for indigents should refuse assignments or withdraw from representation if their workload precludes adequate assistance, see ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Formal Opinion 06–441 (2006).
- Accordingly, most scholars and bar association commissions that have systematically studied the issue believe that unauthorized practice rules should be reconsidered and that alternative forms of regulation be developed. For example, states could develop licensing systems for nonlawyers and Internet services and enforce more narrowly drawn prohibitions against unethical or unqualified providers. Lay practitioners and services could also be required to carry malpractice insurance, contribute to compensation funds for defrauded clients, and observe the same ethical obligations as lawyers concerning confidentiality, competence, and conflicts of interest. Responsibility for enforcement of such regulatory systems could rest with local prosecutors and consumer protection authorities rather than with the organized bar, which has an obvious economic stake in restricting nonlawyer competitors.
- See ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service Responsibilities, summarized in 22 ABA/BNA Manual on Professional Conduct 321 (2006); Deborah L Rhode, Pro Bono in Principle and in Practice 17 (2005). The Florida program, developed by the state bar, states an expectation that every Florida attorney will perform at least 20 hours annually of direct pro bono legal services to the poor or make a $350 cash contribution. Each lawyer must report whether the expectation was met, but failure to do so will not result in any disciplinary sanctions. Talbot D’Alemberte, “Tributaries of Justice: The Search for Full Access,” Florida Bar J., April, 1999, at 12. New Jersey exempts from its requirements practitioners in certain categories, such as public defenders, legal aid lawyers, and private practitioners who volunteer at least 25 hours of assistance to the poor through qualifying legal aid organizations. Madden v. Township of Delran, 601 A.2d 211 (N.J. 1992); “Exemptions from...
- Many Americans, including some prominent critics of the legal profession, seriously underestimate the need for legal assistance in enforcing individual rights and the factors that make such assistance inherently expensive to provide. To function effectively, this nation’s adversary system generally requires parties to have competent lawyers with sufficient resources to present their case before a neutral judge. Such a process requires multiple professionals, facilities, and supporting administrative staff. Transactional practice, as distinct from litigation, generally requires fewer professionals, and can often prevent expensive legal problems, but it too can involve substantial costs.
- Open Chapter
Chapter VI. The Adversary System, Confidentiality, and Alternative Dispute Resolution 136 results (showing 5 best matches)
- See CPR–Georgetown Commission on Ethics and Standards in ADR, Proposed Model Rule of Professional Conduct for the Lawyer as Third Party Neutral (Discussion Draft, April 1999), and sources cited. See also “Symposium on ADR and the Professional Responsibility of Lawyers,” 28 Fordham Urban L.J. 991 (2001).
- American Bar Association and Association of American Law Schools, “Report of the Joint Conference on Professional Responsibility,” reprinted in 44 ABA Journal 1161(1958). See Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Ethics in the Practice of Law 120–35 (1978).
- The scope of lawyers’ disclosure obligations has been a matter of intense controversy. State ethical rules vary. Some are broader than the Model Rules and a few require, not just permit, disclosure of certain illegal acts. Other state standards are narrower than the Model Rules and do not even permit disclosure to prevent financial injuries in contexts where the Model Rules and Sarbanes–Oxley regulations permit. The conflict between state and federal mandates, as well as the interpretation of lawyers’ responsibilities and potential malpractice liability in particular contexts, are likely to remain matters of continuing debate and further reform.
- More comprehensive ethical rules for ADR practitioners are also necessary. Not all of these individuals are lawyers and their practices vary considerably concerning issues such as fairness, confidentiality, and conflicts of interest. There are similar variations in the ethical codes drafted by different professional organizations, such as the American Arbitration Association, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, and the CPR–Georgetown Commission on Ethics and Standards in ADR. Questions remain as to whether all ADR professionals should be held to some uniform standards and, if so, how they should be defined and enforced.
- Regulations promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act require lawyers to report evidence of a material violation of securities law to an organization’s chief legal officer or the officer and the CEO, or to a qualified legal compliance committee. If the officer does not make an appropriate response within a reasonable time, the attorney must report the matter to the highest authority. The regulations also permit lawyers representing securities issuers to reveal client confidences in order to prevent or rectify frauds in which the lawyers’ services have been used. The SEC also considered, but did not approve, regulations opposed by the organized bar that would have required lawyers who did not get an appropriate response to their reports to withdraw and to notify the SEC and successor counsel of their withdrawal.
- Open Chapter
Chapter II. The American Legal Profession and Bar Regulatory Structures 60 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Other bar activities were directed more toward the public interest. The profession promoted law reform and judicial independence; it sought to reduce corrupt or unduly partisan influences over governmental policy and judicial appointments; and by the late twentieth century it supported legal services for the poor and pro bono contributions by its members. Lawyers were at the forefront of almost every major social reform movement of the last two centuries and many viewed public service as part of their professional responsibilities.
- in practice, and women and minorities constitute a smaller percentage of the most experienced attorneys than of the bar generally. Another factor in the case of women is the difficulty that many face in accommodating work and family responsibilities. Almost a fifth of women with graduate and professional degrees are not in the paid labor force compared with five percent of similarly credentialed men.
- Michael Birks, Gentlemen of the Law (1960); W. J. Reader, Professional Men: The Rise of the Professional Classes in Nineteenth–Century England (1966); Deborah L. Rhode, “Moral Character as a Professional Credential,” 94 Yale L. J. 491, 494–95 (1981).
- Over time, a more professional culture evolved. Church courts on the Continent and in England (which adjudicated various civil as well as religious matters) developed more rational procedures of factual and legal argument. The Normans who invaded England also brought with them traditions of trial by combat, use of “juries” for investigation and trial, and expansion of church court jurisdiction. As the forms of adjudication became more sophisticated, a greater role for advocates developed. And as the economy became more complex, a greater need also emerged for advisors who could provide assistance with legal documents, transactions, and commercial disputes. Practitioners in these matters evolved into two groups. Barristers provided trial representation and prepared for this role by attending one of four Inns of Court and then by serving as apprentices to a practicing barrister. Solicitors provided other forms of legal assistance and were governed by professional associations and...
- Yet much depends on how discrimination is defined and whose definition matters. To many attorneys, discrimination implies overt intentional prejudice, and the professional workplaces that they inhabit produce few clear examples. By contrast, other attorneys see bias in more subtle forms, such as unconscious racial and gender stereotypes, exclusion from informal networks of support and professional development opportunities, and inadequate work/family policies. From this perspective, most legal workplaces have ample room for improvement. Over the last two decades, some sixty studies have surveyed bias in the profession, and they consistently find substantial race and gender gaps in perceptions of discrimination. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of women lawyers report experiencing gender bias, while only a quarter to a third of men report observing it. ...attorneys, but only about ten percent of white attorneys, believe that minorities are treated less fairly in hiring and...
- Open Chapter
Chapter III. The Forms and Economics of Legal Practice 53 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Although the extent and causes of lengthening workweeks vary somewhat across practice contexts, some dysfunctional patterns are widely shared. One involves performance. Bleary, burnt-out lawyers seldom provide cost-effective services for clients, and overwork is a leading cause of lawyers’ own disproportionate rates of stress, substance abuse, and other health-related disorders. In addition, extended hours and inflexible schedules pose special problems for those with substantial family responsibilities. Because women assume a disproportionate share of those responsibilities, women lawyers pay a disproportionate price in professional opportunities. The lack of adequate alternative schedules and leave policies is part of the reason for persistent glass ceilings for women, and excessive attrition and recruitment costs for their employers. ...pro bono work. The result is to deny lawyers valuable opportunities for training, trial experience, and community networks in the service of...
- Another variation involves “situation in practice.” This concept can include locality (small town, metropolitan area, etc.), work context (solo practitioner, small firm lawyer, large firm lawyer, government lawyer, etc.) or professional experience and status (senior partner, junior associate, etc.). A different form of classification is premised on the attorney’s primary clientele. Such distinctions depend on the proportion of professional assistance that involves indigents, individuals of modest means, small businesses, large corporations, governmental institutions, and so forth.
- The increasingly demanding nature of professional work is part of a larger global trend. Growing competition within and across occupations and nations is intensifying workplace pressures, and shows no signs of diminishing. The problem is compounded by the priority on profits in advanced industrial societies that is eclipsing other values. Yet for well-paid professionals, this priority may often be self-defeating; it can squeeze out time for family, friends, public service, and personal interests that would ultimately prove more satisfying than the incremental income generated by excessive workloads.
- economic mobility. Attorneys who initially chose well-paying jobs in order to gain training and prestige, or to pay off student loans, often become habituated to the lifestyle that such positions make possible. So too, the work required to generate high income creates a heightened sense of deprivation that fuels heightened demands. Attorneys working long hours feel entitled to goods and services that will make their lives easier and more pleasurable. This pattern of compensatory consumption can become self-perpetuating. Part of the reason many professionals accept grueling schedules is to afford “extras” for themselves or their families that they have little time to enjoy. But luxuries can come to seem like necessities and prevent attorneys from opting for a more satisfying balance of personal, professional, and public service pursuits.
- There are no simple solutions but there are real choices for attorneys who want something different. Lawyers who are dissatisfied with current workplace structures can take collective action or vote with their feet. Competitive pressures may be inevitable but attorneys, both individually and institutionally, can redefine what they are competing over. The desire for status is deeply rooted, but professional cultures can change the way status is measured, and practitioners can live by their own definitions of success and selfworth.
- Open Chapter
Index 13 results (showing 5 best matches)
Chapter VIII. Conflicts of Interest 140 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Note, “Rethinking the Professional Responsibilities of Federal Agency Lawyers,” 115 Harv. L. Rev. 1170, 1175 (2002). See also Berenson, supra note 39, at 823.
- For an overview see Brian J. Redding, “Investing In or Doing Business With Clients: Some Thoughts on Lawyer Liability and Legal Ethics Issues,” Professional Lawyer 113 (Fall 2000); Debra Baker, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” ABA J., Feb. 2000, at 36; Edward H. Cohen, “Lawyers Investing in Their Clients: The Rules of Professional Responsibility,” 14 Insights 2 (2000); John S. Dzienkowski & Robert J. Peroni, “The Decline in Lawyer Independence: Lawyer Equity Investments in Clients,” 81 Tex. L. Rev. 405 (2002).
- See Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.13; Model Code of Professional Responsibility EC 7–13 (1969); Symposium on Government Lawyering, 61 J. Law & Contemp. Probs. 1 (1998); Steven K. Berenson, “Public Lawyers, Private Values: Can, Should, and Will Government Lawyers Serve the Public Interest?” 41 B. C. L. Rev. 789 (2000); Steven K. Berenson, “The Duty Defined: Specific Obligations that Follow From Government Lawyers’ Duty to Serve the Public Interest,” 42 Brandeis L. J. 13 (2003); Jack B. Weinstein & Gay A. Crosthwait, “Some Reflections on Conflicts Between Government Attorneys and Clients,” 1 Touro L. Rev. 1 (1985).
- See, e.g., Catherine J. Lanctot, “The Duty of Zealous Advocacy and the Ethics of the Federal Government Lawyer: The Three Hardest Questions,” 64 S. Cal. L. Rev. 951, 1012–17 (1991); Jonathan R. Macey & Geoffrey P. Miller, “Reflections on Professional Responsibility in a Regulatory State,” 63 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1105, 1116 (1995); Geoffrey P. Miller, “Government Lawyers’ Ethics in a System of Checks and Balances,” 54 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1293, 1294–95 (1987); Michael Stokes Paulsen, “Hell, Handbaskets, and Government Lawyers: The Duty of Loyalty and Its Limits,” 61 Law & Contemp. Probs., 83, 85–86 (1998).
- A government lawyer in a civil action or administrative proceeding has the responsibility to seek justice and to develop a full and fair record, and he should not use his position or the economic power of the government to harass parties or to bring about unjust settlements or results.
- Open Chapter
Chapter IV. The Constitutional Functions of the Legal Profession 18 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Milton C. Regan, “The Professional Responsibility of the Corporate Lawyer,” 13 Georgetown J. Legal Ethics, 197, 206 (2000).
- In constitutional regimes, these issues are posed, debated, and resolved in terms of legal rules. Attorneys are involved in all aspects of the process. In the public sector, lawyers play a critical role in legislatures that are drafting statutes; in administrative agencies that are formulating and implementing regulations; and in courts that are enforcing these bodies of law. In the private sector, in-house and outside counsel assist clients in interpreting, implementing, and challenging relevant law. These professional roles involve complex interdependent relationships. Some lawyers over their careers serve in both sectors, and may pass through the “revolving door” on multiple occasions. However, whatever their position, attorney generally share a commitment to the rule of law even while disagreeing about specific interpretations and applications. After all, a lawyer’s vocation and livelihood depends on maintaining that commitment to legal principles and procedures.
- To most contemporary commentators, the only viable response to capitalist critiques is more effective regulation. However, a major problem has always been the extent to which business has been able to capture its regulators. “Crony capitalism” is all too pervasive and corrosive. A crucial issue about capitalism—perhaps to protect individuals’ rights from corporate overreaching, and to redistribute a fair share of profits from corporate activity.
- The concept of individual rights generally is understood to include freedom of speech and conscience, freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, unreasonable searches and seizures, and procedural unfairness; and, in more recent times, freedom from discrimination based on race, gender, religious affiliation, or national origin. Individual rights also encompass the right to ownership of property and participation in contractual transactions for employment, goods, and services. An extension of these individual rights is the right to form organizations, such as religious congregations, private nonprofit institutions, business partnerships, and political parties.
- These debates have grown increasingly important as multinational corporations have grown increasingly powerful. Capitalist enterprises exercise substantial influence over matters of enormous societal significance, including employment, the environment, the availability of goods and services, and health, safety, and financial security of stakeholders. Multinational organizations have achieved their dominance because they have developed efficient ways of satisfying market demands, and effective ways of responding to attempted oversight. International experience suggests that the corporate form permits the most disciplined coordination of cooperative effort; such disciplined coordination permits the most costeffective matching of labor, components, and intelligent direction; and maximum cost-effectiveness in production results in more abundant goods and services, whatever their eventual distribution. However, granting these advantages still leaves open the questions of how such...
- Open Chapter
Copyright Page 1 result
- This publication was created to provide you with accurate and authoritative information concerning the subject matter covered; however, this publication was not necessarily prepared by persons licensed to practice law in a particular jurisdiction. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice and this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.
- Open Chapter
Table of Cases 3 results
- Buckhannon Bd. and Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001), 157
- Peel v. Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Com’n, 496 U.S. 91, 110 S.Ct. 2281, 110 L.Ed.2d 83 (1990), 187
- Willner v. Committee on Character and Fitness, 373 U.S. 96, 83 S.Ct. 1175, 10 L.Ed.2d 224 (1963), 259
- Open Chapter
- Publication Date: December 12th, 2006
- ISBN: 9781599411422
- Subject: Professional Responsibility/Ethics
- Series: Concepts and Insights
- Type: Hornbook Treatises
- Description: This comprehensive examination of professional responsibility law contains in-depth, substantive discussion supported by expert analysis and commentary, case citations, statutes, and court rules. Subjects include conflicts of interest, qualifications for the bar, regulating the market for legal services, competency standards, and disciplinary measures.