Professional Responsibility: Ethical Lawyering

This course surveys the ethical, regulatory and liability standards by which lawyers are bound from the perspective of how those standards may be experienced in practice, and why they are often much harder to appreciate and comply with in the real world than they may seem in the classroom. Topics will include the market and organizational environments within which professional conduct is undertaken; the ethics and mechanics of creating and terminating the attorney-client relationship; the financial and fiduciary features of the attorney-client relationship (fees, trust funds, loyalty to the client's directions and interests, confidentiality); duties lawyers owe to persons other than clients; conflicts of interest; ethics in advocacy; and representing entities and other ethical issues in a business practice. These topics will be addressed in the context in which they typically arise in practice, with a focus on anticipating and avoiding problems before they arise and a practical approach to solving them when they do.