Acing Professional Responsibility
Author:
Abramson, Leslie W.
Edition:
4th
Copyright Date:
2020
16 chapters
have results for acing professional responsibility
Conclusion: General Examination Tips 2 results
- ow that you have the full set of checklists for each of the topics that you will be covering on your examination, there are some bits of advice to help you ace your Professional Responsibility examination or the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE):
- Don’t waste time talking with other classmates about the exam. You’ll just create more anxiety for yourself. Focus on the next exam; or, if Professional Responsibility is your last exam, celebrate being done!
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Acknowledgments 1 result
Title Page 3 results
Chapter 1. Regulation of the Legal Profession 29 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Applicants for admission to the bar usually must satisfy several requirements. They must: (1) graduate from an accredited law school, (2) pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), (3) pass the bar examination for that state, and (4) have the necessary character and fitness to practice law.
- your firm to assist you in providing legal services to your client, you must make reasonable efforts to ensure that those services are compatible with your professional obligations. Rule 5.3, Comment 3. If the client selects a nonlawyer service provider outside the firm, you ordinarily should agree with the client about the allocation of monitoring responsibility between you and the client. Rule 5.3, Comment 4. If a breach of confidential information occurs, you must inform your affected clients.
- Even if you are not a partner in a firm, you may have supervisory authority over another lawyer, e.g., a senior associate supervising a junior associate. Your responsibilities are the same as a partner in order to assure compliance with ethics standards by the lawyers working under your authority, but your responsibilities relate only to them. Those responsibilities extend to the performance and quality of those lawyers’ work, and includes being available to answer their questions. Rule 5.1(b).
- You cannot escape your responsibility for ethical misconduct by claiming that you were just following orders. Rule 5.2(a). On the other hand, if the existence of an ethical violation is not clear, you can defer to the judgment of your supervising lawyer when you followed the “reasonable resolution of an arguable question of professional duty.” Rule 5.2(b). Courts often decide instead that, as the supervised lawyer, your reasonable course was to look up the law rather than relying on your supervising lawyer’s opinion about the proper course of action. Lawyers have brought wrongful discharge claims against their law firms or their clients when they have been fired for their refusal to engage in unethical activity. The typical case relates to being fired for not following the supervising lawyer’s unethical directive. Rule 5.2(a). The supervised lawyer claims that her termination was wrongful, even though she was an at-will employee of the firm.
- s an exercise of their police powers, the states regulate the legal profession because it affects the public interest. The courts of each state have the inherent power to regulate members of the legal profession for their conduct, both in-court and elsewhere. The highest court of each state has adopted standards of professional ethics based on models created by the American Bar Association [ABA].
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Acing 1 result
Chapter 8. Different Roles of the Lawyer 5 results
- In the wake of the Enron scandals during which thousands of people saw the value of their pensions disappear, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act required the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] to create regulations governing the professional responsibility of lawyers who represent corporations which issue publicly-traded securities. Those regulations are found in
- n your role as an advisor, you must exercise your independent professional judgment to give your client your realistic opinion about both what a court is likely to do in her case and the practical effects of the ruling. The exercise of your independent professional judgment refers to the advice to your client, free of biases created by other interests or parties. You also have a duty to tell your litigation clients about “forms of dispute resolution that might constitute reasonable alternatives to litigation.” Rule 2.1, Comment 5. On the other hand, if your client tells you to confine your advice to legal matters or not to offer unsolicited advice, you should comply unless her inexperience suggests that you should say more to her. Rule 2.1, Comments 3 and 5.
- Special Prosecutorial Responsibilities
- Part of your responsibility in representing an entity is to act in its best interests. Rule 1.13(b) describes how you determine what the entity wants to do, how high up the corporate ladder you are required to go, and what happens when you reach the top of the ladder and you are still unsatisfied.
- Special Prosecutorial Responsibilities
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Copyright Page 2 results
Chapter 4. Conflicts of Interest 16 results (showing 5 best matches)
- If you represent several people who are forming a business, you cannot permit any responsibility to one of those clients to materially limit your responsibilities in representing the others.
- This type of conflict may relate to current clients whom you represent in the same lawsuit or negotiation. In a class action where you represent the plaintiff class, you have a “materially limited” conflict if one of the potential defendants is also a current client. But for your representation of the potential defendant, your advice to the plaintiff class about whether to name that person as a defendant might differ. Or, if you represent several people who are forming a business, you cannot permit any responsibility to one of those clients to materially limit your responsibilities in representing the others.
- You lack substantial responsibility over a matter if you give it only superficial approval. You must have “had such a heavy responsibility for the matter in question that it is likely [you] became personally and substantially involved in the investigative or deliberative processes regarding that matter.”
- The federal statute imposes a lifetime ban for appearing in connection with a particular matter if the government official participated personally and substantially in working on the matter. There is a two-year ban if the matter was merely under the person’s “official responsibility.” Finally, there is a one-year ban which precludes the former official from contacting her former agency with the intent to influence any agency action.
- Rule 1.7(a)(2) prohibits representation if there is a significant risk that the representation will be “materially limited” by your responsibilities to another, whether that client is a current client, a former client, a third person, or even yourself.
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Chapter 10. Advertising and Solicitation 16 results (showing 5 best matches)
- You may enter into reciprocal referral agreements with another lawyer or nonlawyer professional, if that agreement is not exclusive and your client is told about the existence and nature of the agreement. Rule 7.2(b)(4). Otherwise, you cannot pay anyone for sending professional work your way. Rule 7.2, Comment 6. The purpose of these Rules is that you must be independent of other persons.
- Rule 7.3(a) prohibits a lawyer from soliciting “professional employment by live person-to-person contact when a significant motive for the lawyer’s doing so is the lawyer’s pecuniary gain.” The targets of all Weinstein mailings are to former clients. An exception to the general rule permits a contact with persons who have a “a family, close personal, or prior business or professional relationship with the lawyer.” Rule 7.3(b)(2).
- if it provides “information about a lawyer’s fee without indicating the client’s responsibilities for costs, if any. If the client may be responsible for costs in the absence of a recovery, a communication may not indicate that the lawyer’s fee is contingent on obtaining a recovery unless the communication also discloses that the client may be responsible for court costs and expenses of litigation.”
- Firm Names and Letterheads, and Professional Designations
- When your firm has offices in more than one jurisdiction, it may use the same professional designation in each jurisdiction. Rule 7.1, Comment 6.
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Appendix. Mini-Checklists 16 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Subordinate Lawyers’ Responsibilities.
- Reporting Professional Misconduct
- Responsibilities of Partners, Supervisory and Subordinate Lawyers
- Supervisory Responsibilities of Lawyers.
- Lawyers in different firms may divide fees in proportion to the services performed by each lawyer or if each of them assumes joint responsibility for the case, and the client agrees in writing to the division.
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- In preparation for trial, you may interview witnesses and prepare them for their testimony. However, you cannot suggest to a client or a witness that she testify falsely. Rule 3.4(b). Even if your suggestion does not amount to suborning perjury, your ethical responsibilities preclude you from coaching your client or witness to testify falsely.
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Table of Contents 8 results (showing 5 best matches)
Chapter 12. Judicial Ethics 3 results
- If a judge knows either that another judge has violated the CJC or that a lawyer has violated the Rules of Professional Conduct, raising a substantial question about his honesty, trustworthiness or general fitness to serve, she must inform the appropriate authority.
- If a judge knows either that another judge has violated the CJC or that a lawyer has violated the Rules of Professional Conduct, she must inform the appropriate authority. CJC Rule 2.15(A)–(B).
- If a judge reasonably believes that a lawyer or another judge “is impaired by drugs or alcohol, or by a mental, emotional, or physical condition,” she must “take appropriate action, which may include a confidential referral to a lawyer or judicial assistance program.” CJC Rule 2.14. If a judge knows either that another judge has violated the CJC or that a lawyer has violated the Rules of Professional Conduct, raising a substantial question about his honesty, trustworthiness or general fitness to serve, she must inform the appropriate authority. CJC Rule 2.15(A)–(B). These Rules parallel the lawyer reporting requirement in MRPC 8.3. If a judge “receives information indicating a substantial likelihood that another judge” or a lawyer has violated those ethical standards, she must take appropriate action. CJC Rule 2.15(C)–(D).
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Chapter 3. Client Confidentiality 6 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Professional Obligation of Confidentiality—General Rule
- Professional Obligation of Confidentiality—General Rule
- recognizes that Rule 4.4(b) requires only that the receiving lawyer notify the sender if she knows or reasonably should know that the fax was sent inadvertently. Comment 3 to Rule 4.4(b) leaves it to the recipient’s professional judgment to determine whether to return the document unread.
- client may choose to instruct you not to discuss all or some of that information, even with your professional colleagues.
- When a client discloses information to a lawyer, generally that information cannot be disclosed by the lawyer without the client’s consent. Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6(a). Rule 1.6(a) requires a lawyer to maintain inviolate information relating to the representation of a client. Here, the CEO did not give permission to Maris to disclose information about the acquisition possibility. He clearly told the Maris
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- If you decide to contract or retain a lawyer outside your firm to provide or assist in providing competent services to a client, you should ordinarily obtain your client’s informed consent. Rule 1.1, Comment 6. You and the other lawyer thereafter ordinarily should consult each other and your client about both the scope of your respective representations and the allocation of responsibility. Rule 1.1, Comment 7.
- In a professional malpractice claim based on negligence, your former client must prove that:
- In a professional malpractice case based on your negligence, your former client must prove that you owed her a duty of care, that you breached that duty, and that the breach caused injury to her in the form of damages.
- Reasonable diligence requires that you assess the work that needs to be done on her behalf and to exercise reasonable promptness in completing that work. A statute of limitation, a rule of procedure, or your client’s schedule may affect your timetable for completing your work. Delays happen in law practice. You may agree “to a reasonable request for a postponement that will not prejudice” your client. Rule 1.3, Comment 3. You are subject to legal discipline for neglect only when there is a pattern of action or inaction. Your heavy workload does not excuse your neglect of the cases for which you have assumed responsibility.
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Chapter 2. The Lawyer-Client Relationship 9 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Nature and length of the professional relationship with the client.
- Nature and length of the professional relationship with the client.
- The division must either be divided in proportion to the services performed by each lawyer or have each of them assume joint responsibility for the case.
- You must “consult with the client about any relevant limitation on the lawyer’s conduct when the lawyer knows that the client expects assistance not permitted by the Rules of Professional Conduct or other law.”
- Nature and length of the professional relationship with the client.
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- Publication Date: August 17th, 2020
- ISBN: 9781647082970
- Subject: Professional Responsibility/Ethics
- Series: Acing Series
- Type: Exam Prep
- Description: Acing Professional Responsibility provides a dual benefit to law students who, to become licensed lawyers, have to pass both a law school exam in a Legal Ethics course as well as the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE). To prepare for the law school examination, there are pages of text, numerous outlines, bullet points, sample essay questions and answers, and mini-checklists to learn the basics and fine points of Professional Responsibility. The Acing book also enables students to quickly recall and pass the MPRE. The materials are current through the Model Rules changes in 2018.
