Professional Responsibility Outline

Course Overview
Can a good lawyer be a good person?
Understanding Duty!
Commencing the Lawyer Client Relationship
The Perjury Trilemma
3 Duties – Tribunal, Client, Case
Conflicts & other aspects of “Loyalty”
Counseling & advising Clients
Special Litigation Challenges
Current ethics issues & a special project
 
RPC 1.6 – Confidentiality of Information
reflecting a “fundamental principle” in the lawyer client relationship
Model Rules -> ABA
State adopts their own rules based on the Model Rules
Collective process -> hearings, testimony, etc.
(a) A layer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of the client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized to carry out the representation or the disclosure permitted by paragraph (b).
Information – confidences (what your client says to you); work product
Secret – ex. finding moved earth at the crime scene; not to reveal the secret, could be that the client has no knowledge
A fundamental principle, the heart of the relationship between the lawyer and the client
Impliedly Authorized –
 
RPC 1.0 – Terminology
(e) “Informed Consent” denotes the agreement by a person to a proposed course of conduct after the lawyer has communicated adequate information and explanation about the material risks of and reasonably available alternatives to the proposed course of conduct.
 
Morality, Ethics or Professional Responsibility?
1. What ethical rules govern non-lawyers?
Themes – five; harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity
Visceral moral response, and then post hoc analysis
2. Are lawyers different?
Recognizing “role differentiation”
When you make judgments that are visceral? Be aware of your gut reactions
3. The Good Lawyer / Bad Person debate.
Clash between values of role and human values
Be aware of your own level of discomfort
Where will your rules be in conflict with the rules your swore to
Withdrawal
Sometimes, not always, not automatically
4. The evolving regulatory scheme
5. RPC 1.6
 
Endless debates about solutions – how far should one go when class in role differentiation behavior and n