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Summary of Contents

Contents

Table of Problems

Preface to the Fourth Edition for Teachers and Students

Acknowledgments

A Note to Students About Updates to This Book

Introduction

A. Ethics, morals, and professionalism

B. Some central themes in this book

C. The structure of this book

D The rules quoted in this book: A note on sources

E. Stylistic decisions

Chapter 1: The Regulation of Lawyers

A. Institutions that regulate lawyers

B. State ethics codes

C. Admission to practice

Chapter 2: Lawyer Liability

A. Professional discipline

B. Civil liability of lawyers

C Criminal liability of lawyers

D. Client protection funds

E Summing up: The law governing lawyers

Chapter 3: The Duty to Protect Client Confidences

A The basic principle of confidentiality

B. Exceptions to the duty to protect confidences

C. Use or disclosure of confidential information for personal gain or to benefit another client

D. Talking to clients about confidentiality

Chapter 4: The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine

A. Confidentiality and attorney-client privilege compared

B The elements of attorney-client privilege

C. Client identity

D. Waiver

E The crime-fraud exception

F. Revelations permitted or required by the ethics codes

G. The death of the client

H. The work product doctrine

I. The attorney-client privilege for corporations

J The attorney-client privilege for government officials

Chapter 5: Relationships Between Lawyers and Clients

A Formation of the lawyer-client relationship

B. Lawyers’ responsibilities as agents

C Lawyers’ duties of competence, honesty, communication, and diligence

D. Who calls the shots?

E. Terminating a lawyer-client relationship

Chapter 6: Conflicts of Interest: Current Clients

A. An introduction to conflicts of interest

B General principles in evaluating concurrent conflicts

C. Conflicts between current clients in litigation

D Conflicts involving prospective clients

Chapter 7: Current Client Conflicts in Particular Practice Settings

A Representing both parties to a transaction

B. Representing organizations

C. Representing co-defendants in criminal cases

D. Representing co-defendants in civil cases

E. Representing family members

F Representing insurance companies and insured persons

G. Representing employers and immigrant employees

H. Representing plaintiffs in class actions

I. Representing parties to aggregate settlements of individual cases

Chapter 8: Conflicts Involving Former Clients

A. Nature of conflicts between present and former clients

B. Duties to former clients

C Distinguishing present and former clients

D. Evaluating successive conflicts

E. Addressing former client conflicts in practice

F. Representing the competitor of a former client

G. Conflicts between the interests of a present client and a client who was represented by a lawyer’s former firm

H. Imputation of former client conflicts to affiliated lawyers

Chapter 9: Conflicts Between Lawyers and Clients

A. Legal fees

B. Lawyer as custodian of client property and documents

C. Conflicts with lawyers’ personal or business interests

Chapter 10: Conflicts Issues for Government Lawyers and Judges

A. Regulation of government lawyers and those who lobby them

B Successive conflicts of former and present government lawyers

C. Conflicts involving judges, arbitrators, and mediators

Chapter 11: Lawyers’ Duties to Courts

A. Being a good person in an adversary system

B. Investigation before filing a complaint

C. Truth and falsity in litigation

D. Concealment of physical evidence and documents

E The duty to disclose adverse legal authority

F. Disclosures in ex parte proceedings

G. Improper influences on judges and juries

H. Lawyers’ duties in nonadjudicative proceedings

Chapter 12: Lawyers’ Duties to Adversaries and Third Persons

A. Communications with lawyers and third persons

B. Duties of prosecutors

C Conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice

D. Are lawyers really too zealous?

Chapter 13: The Provision of Legal Services

A. The unmet need for legal services

B Sources of free legal services for those who cannot afford legal fees

C. Restrictions on participation by nonlawyers in providing legal services

Chapter 14: The American Legal Profession: Past, Present, and Future

A. History and development of the U.S. legal profession

B. Advertising and solicitation

C. Diversity and discrimination in U.S. law firms

D. Legal culture in certain practice settings

E Work settings for lawyers: Culture and satisfaction

F. The business of law practice in the twenty-first century

About the Authors

Table of Articles, Books, and Reports

Table of Cases

Table of Rules, Restatements, Statutes, Bar Opinions, and Other Standards Index

Contents

Table of Problems

Preface to the Fourth Edition for Teachers and Students Acknowledgments

A Note to Students About Updates to This Book

Introduction

A. Ethics, morals, and professionalism

B Some central themes in this book

1. Conflicts of interest

2. Truthfulness

3. Lawyers’ duties to clients versus their duties to the justice system

4. Lawyers’ personal and professional interests versus their fiduciary obligations

5 Self-interest as a theme in regulation of lawyers

6. Lawyers as employees: Institutional pressures on ethical judgments

7. The changing legal profession

C The structure of this book

D. The rules quoted in this book: A note on sources

E Stylistic decisions

Chapter 1: The Regulation of Lawyers

A. Institutions that regulate lawyers

1 The highest state courts

a. The responsibility of “self-regulation”

b The inherent powers doctrine

2. State and local bar associations

3. Lawyer disciplinary agencies

4 American Bar Association

5. American Law Institute

6. Federal and state courts

7. Legislatures

8. Administrative agencies

9 Prosecutors

10. Malpractice insurers

11 Law firms and other employers

12. Clients

B. State ethics codes

C. Admission to practice

1. A short history of bar admission

2 Contemporary bar admission requirements

3. The bar examination

Problem 1-1: The New Country

4. The character and fitness inquiry

a. Criteria for evaluation

b Filling out the character questionnaire

Problem 1-2: Weed

c Mental health of applicants

d. Law school discipline: A preliminary screening process

Problem 1-3: The Doctored Resume

Chapter 2: Lawyer Liability

A. Professional discipline

1. History and process of lawyer discipline

2. Grounds for discipline

Problem 2-1: The Dying Mother

Problem 2-2: “I’m Not Driving”

3. Reporting misconduct by other lawyers

a. The duty to report misconduct

Problem 2-3: Exculpatory Evidence

b. Lawyers’ responsibility for ethical misconduct by colleagues and superiors

Problem 2-4: The Little Hearing

c. Legal protections for subordinate lawyers

Case study: The strange tale of Scott McKay Wolas

Kelly v. Hunton & Williams

B. Civil liability of lawyers

1 Legal malpractice

2. Malpractice insurance

3. Other civil liability of lawyers

a. Liability for breach of contract

b. Liability for violation of regulatory statutes

4 Disqualification for conflicts of interest

C. Criminal liability of lawyers

D Client protection funds

E. Summing up: The law governing lawyers

Chapter

3: The

Duty to Protect Client Confidences

A The basic principle of confidentiality

1. Protection of “information relating to the representation of a client”

Problem 3-1: Your Dinner with Anna

2. Protection of information if there is a reasonable prospect of harm to a client’s interests

3. The bottom line on informal communications

4. Additional cautions about protecting client confidences

B Exceptions to the duty to protect confidences

1. Revelation of past criminal conduct

Case study: The missing persons: The defense of Robert Garrow

Problem 3-2: The Missing Persons, Scene 1

Problem 3-3: The Missing Persons, Scene 2

The real case

The Belge case

People v Belge

People v. Belge (appeal)

Problem 3-4: The Missing Persons, Scene 3

2. The risk of future injury or death

Problem 3-5: Rat Poison

3 Client frauds and crimes that cause financial harm

a. Ethics rules allowing revelation of client crimes or frauds to prevent, mitigate, or remedy harm to others

b. Enron and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Subsequent developments in the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley

Problem 3-6: Reese’s Leases

4. Revealing confidences to obtain advice about legal ethics

5 Using a client’s confidential information to protect the lawyer’s interests

6. Revealing confidences to comply with a court order or other law

7. Revealing confidences to prevent certain conflicts of interest

C. Use or disclosure of confidential information for personal gain or to benefit another client

Problem 3-7: An Investment Project

D. Talking to clients about confidentiality

Chapter 4: The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine

A Confidentiality and attorney-client privilege compared

1. Ethics law versus evidence law

2. Difference in scope

3. Different methods of enforcement

4. When attorney-client privilege is invoked

5 Why study a rule of evidence in a professional responsibility course?

6. Source of the privilege

B. The elements of attorney-client privilege

1. Communication

2. Privileged persons

3 Communication in confidence

4. Communication for the purpose of seeking legal assistance

C Client identity

D. Waiver

1. Waiver by the client

2 Waiver by the lawyer

3. Waiver by putting privileged communication into issue

4 Waiver as to a conversation by disclosure of part of it

5. Compliance with court orders

Problem 4-1: Murder for Hire

E The crime-fraud exception

1. No privilege if a client seeks assistance with a crime or fraud

2 Procedure for challenging a claim of privilege

3. The potential importance of privilege claims in litigation

F. Revelations permitted or required by the ethics codes

G. The death of the client

1. Introduction

Problem 4-2: A Secret Confession

2. The suicide of Vincent Foster

a. Factual background

b The Supreme Court evaluates the privilege claim

Swidler & Berlin v. United States

H The work product doctrine

1. Work product prepared in anticipation of litigation

2. Origins of the work product rule

3. Materials not created or collected in anticipation of litigation

4. A qualified protection

5 Protection of a lawyer’s “mental impressions”

6. Protection of work product, not underlying information

7 Expert witnesses

I. The attorney-client privilege for corporations

1. The Upjohn case

2. Governmental requests for waiver of privilege

Problem 4-3: Worldwide Bribery

J The attorney-client privilege for government officials

Chapter 5: Relationships Between Lawyers and Clients

A. Formation of the lawyer-client relationship

1. Lawyer discretion in selection of clients

2. Offering advice as the basis for a lawyer-client relationship

Togstad v Vesely, Otto, Miller & Keefe

B. Lawyers’ responsibilities as agents

1. Express and implied authority

2 Apparent authority

3. Authority to settle litigation

C Lawyers’ duties of competence, honesty, communication, and diligence

1. Competence

Problem 5-1: The Washing Machine

2. Competence in criminal cases

a. Strickland v. Washington

b The aftermath of Strickland

Problem 5-2: A Desire to Investigate

3. Diligence

4. Candor and communication

a. Is it ever okay to lie?

b Lying versus deception: Is there a moral distinction?

c. Truth versus truthfulness

d. Honesty and communication under the ethics rules

e. Civil liability for dishonesty to clients

5. Candor in counseling

Problem 5-3: Torture

6. Duties imposed by contract in addition to those imposed by the ethics codes

7. Contractual reduction of a lawyer’s duties: Client waiver of certain lawyer duties and “unbundled legal services”

8 Contractual modification of a lawyer’s duties: Collaborative law practice

D. Who calls the shots?

1. The competent adult client

Jones v Barnes

2. Clients with diminished capacity

a. Clients who may have mental impairments

Problem 5-4: The Package Bomber

Problem 5-5: Vinyl Windows

Problem 5-6: Tightening the Knot

b. Juveniles

Frances Gall Hill, Clinical Education and the “Best Interest” Representation of Children in Custody Disputes: Challenges and Opportunities in Lawyering and Pedagogy

Problem 5-7: The Foster Child

E. Terminating a lawyer-client relationship

1. Duties to the client at the conclusion of the relationship

Problem 5-8: The Candid Notes

2 Grounds for termination before the work is completed

a. When the client fires the lawyer

b. When continued representation would involve unethical conduct

c. When the lawyer wants to terminate the relationship

d. Matters in litigation

e When the client stops paying the fee

f. When the case imposes an unreasonable financial burden on the lawyer

g When the client will not cooperate

3. Fees

Chapter 6: Conflicts of Interest: Current Clients

A An introduction to conflicts of interest

1. Why the study of conflicts is difficult

2. How the conflicts chapters are organized

3. How the conflicts rules are organized

B. General principles in evaluating concurrent conflicts

1 Rule 1 7

a. Direct adversity

b. Material limitation

2. How to evaluate conflicts

3. Nonconsentable conflicts

a The lawyer’s reasonable belief

b. Representation prohibited by law

c. Suing one client on behalf of another client

4 Informed consent

5. Withdrawal and disqualification

Problem 6-1: The Injured Passengers, Scene 1

6. Imputation of concurrent conflicts

Problem 6-2: Food Poisoning

C Conflicts between current clients in litigation

1. Suing a current client

Problem 6-3: I Thought You Were My Lawyer!

2. Cross-examining a current client

3. Representation of co-plaintiffs or co-defendants in civil litigation

Problem 6-4: The Injured Passengers, Scene 2

4. Representing economic competitors in unrelated matters

5 Conflicts in public interest litigation

Problem 6-5: The Prisoners’ Dilemma

6. Positional conflicts: Taking inconsistent legal positions in litigation

Problem 6-6: Top Gun

D. Conflicts involving prospective clients

Problem 6-7: The Secret Affair

Chapter 7: Current Client Conflicts in Particular Practice Settings

A. Representing both parties to a transaction

B Representing organizations

1. Who is the client?

2. Representing the entity and employees

3. Duty to protect confidences of employees

4. Responding to unlawful conduct by corporate officers and other employees

5 Entity lawyers on boards of directors

Problem 7-1: A Motion to Disqualify

Problem 7-2: My Client’s Subsidiary

C. Representing co-defendants in criminal cases

1. Costs and benefits of joint representation of co-defendants

2 Ethics rules and the Sixth Amendment

Problem 7-3: Police Brutality, Scene 1

Problem 7-4: Police Brutality, Scene 2

Problem 7-5: Police Brutality, Scene 3

D. Representing co-defendants in civil cases

Problem 7-6: Termination of Parental Rights

E. Representing family members

1 Representing both spouses in a divorce

2. Representing family members in estate planning

Florida Bar Opinion 95-4 (1997)

Problem 7-7: Representing the McCarthys

F. Representing insurance companies and insured persons

Problem 7-8: Two Masters

G. Representing employers and immigrant employees

H. Representing plaintiffs in class actions

I. Representing parties to aggregate settlements of individual cases

Chapter 8: Conflicts Involving Former Clients

A Nature of conflicts between present and former clients

B. Duties to former clients

C. Distinguishing present and former clients

D Evaluating successive conflicts

1. The same matter

2 Substantial relationship

An example of substantial relationship analysis: Westinghouse v. Gulf

3. Material adversity

Problem 8-1: Keeping in Touch

E. Addressing former client conflicts in practice

Problem 8-2: Toxic Waste

F. Representing the competitor of a former client

The Maritrans case

G. Conflicts between the interests of a present client and a client who was represented by a lawyer’s former firm

1. Analyzing former firm conflicts

2. Using or revealing a former client’s confidences

H Imputation of former client conflicts to affiliated lawyers

Problem 8-3: A Brief Consultation

Problem 8-4: The Fatal Shot

Chapter 9: Conflicts Between Lawyers and Clients

A. Legal fees

1 Lawyer-client fee contracts

a. Types of fee agreements

b. Reasonable fees

Matter of Fordham

c Communication about fee arrangements

Problem 9-1: An Unreasonable Fee?

d. Modification of fee agreements

Problem 9-2: Rising Prices

2. Regulation of hourly billing and billing for expenses

Patrick J Schiltz, On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession

Lisa G Lerman, Scenes from a Law Firm

3. Contingent fees

a. In general

b. Criminal and domestic relations cases

4. Forbidden and restricted fee and expense arrangements

a Buying legal claims

b. Financial assistance to a client

Problem 9-3: An Impoverished Client

c. Publication rights

d. Advance payment of fees and nonrefundable retainer fees

5 Fee disputes

a. Prospective limitations of lawyers’ liability and settlement of claims against lawyers

b. Fee arbitration

c Collection of fees

d. Fees owed to a lawyer who withdraws or is fired before the matter is completed

6. Dividing fees with other firms or with nonlawyers

a. Division of fees between lawyers not in the same firm

b Sharing fees with nonlawyers

7. Payment of fees by a third party

B Lawyer as custodian of client property and documents

1. Client trust accounts

2. Responsibility for client property

a. Prompt delivery of funds or property

b. Disputes about money or property in lawyer’s possession

c Lawyers’ responsibilities to clients’ creditors

3. Administering estates and trusts

C. Conflicts with lawyers’ personal or business interests

1 In general

2. Business transactions between lawyer and client

3 Gifts from clients

4 Sexual relationships with clients

5. Intimate or family relationships with adverse lawyers

6. Imputation of lawyer-client conflicts to other lawyers in a firm

a. Financial interest conflicts

b. General rule on imputation of conflicts with a lawyer’s interests

Chapter 10: Conflicts Issues for Government Lawyers and Judges

A. Regulation of government lawyers and those who lobby them

1. The law governing lobbying: An introduction

2. Conflict of interest and “revolving door” statutes

B. Successive conflicts of former and present government lawyers

1 Conflicts of former government lawyers in private practice

a. What is a “ matter”?

b. Personal and substantial participation

c Screening of former government lawyers

d. Confidential government information

2 Conflicts of government lawyers who formerly worked in private practice

Problem 10-1: The District Attorney

C. Conflicts involving judges, arbitrators, and mediators

1. History of judicial ethics codes in the United States

2. Overview of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct

3 Impartiality and fairness; avoidance of bias, prejudice, and harassment

4. Ex parte communications

5. Disqualification of judges

Problem 10-2: A Trip to Monte Carlo

Problem 10-3: The Judge’s Former Professor

6 Conflicts rules for former judges, law clerks, arbitrators, and mediators

a. Personal and substantial participation

b. Imputation

c. Employment negotiation

Chapter 11: Lawyers’ Duties to Courts

A Being a good person in an adversary system

Stephen Gillers, Can a Good Lawyer Be a Bad Person?

B. Investigation before filing a complaint

Problem 11-1: Your Visit from Paula Jones

C. Truth and falsity in litigation

1 The rules on candor to tribunals

2 Which rule applies when? A taxonomy of truth-telling problems in litigation

3. A lawyer’s duties if a client or witness intends to give false testimony

a. When the lawyer believes that a criminal defendant intends to lie on the stand

Nix v. Whiteside

b. A lawyer’s “knowledge” of a client’s intent to give false testimony

Problem 11-2: Flight from Sudan, Scene 1

c A lawyer’s duties if a client intends to mislead the court without lying

Problem 11-3: Flight from Sudan, Scene 2

d. A lawyer’s duty if he knows that a client has lied to a tribunal

e. Variations in state rules on candor to tribunals

4. False impressions created by lawyers during litigation

How Simpson Lawyers Bamboozled a Jury

Problem 11-4: The Drug Test

Problem 11-5: The Body Double

5. Lawyers’ duties of truthfulness in preparing witnesses to testify

Problem 11-6: Refreshing Recollection

D Concealment of physical evidence and documents

1. Duties of criminal defense lawyers with respect to evidence of crimes

Problem 11-7: Child Pornography

2. Concealment of documents and other evidence in civil and criminal cases

a. A limited obligation to reveal

b. A lawyer’s duties in responding to discovery requests

Wayne D. Brazil, Views from the Front Lines: Observations by Chicago

Lawyers About the System of Civil Discovery

Ethics: Beyond the Rules

Problem 11-8: The Damaging Documents

E. The duty to disclose adverse legal authority

F. Disclosures in ex parte proceedings

G Improper influences on judges and juries

1. Improper influences on judges

a Ex parte communication with judges

b. Campaign contributions

2. Improper influences on juries

a. Lawyers’ comments to the press

Narrowing restrictions on trial publicity: the Gentile case

Problem 11-9: A Letter to the Editor

Scott Brede, A Notable Case of Exceptionally Unsafe Sex

b. Impeachment of truthful witnesses

Harry I Subin, The Criminal Defense Lawyer’s “Different Mission”: Reflections on the “Right” to Present a False Case

c Statements by lawyers during jury trials

H. Lawyers’ duties in nonadjudicative proceedings

Chapter 12: Lawyers’ Duties to Adversaries and Third Persons

A Communications with lawyers and third persons

1. Deception of third persons

a The duty to avoid material false statements

Problem 12-1: Emergency Food Stamps

b. Lawyers’ duties of truthfulness in fact investigation

The Gatti case

Note About Gatti

c Lawyers’ duties of truthfulness in negotiation

d. Receipt of inadvertently transmitted information, including metadata

e. Obligation of disclosure to third persons

2. Restrictions on contact with represented persons

The Messing case

3 Restrictions on contact with unrepresented persons

Problem 12-2: The Complaining Witness

4. Respect for the rights of third persons

Problem 12-3: The Break-In

Note: Stolen documents as evidence

B Duties of prosecutors

Ken Armstrong & Maurice Possley, Trial and Error, Part 1: Verdict: Dishonor

1. Undercover investigations

Problem 12-4: The Prosecutor’s Masquerade

Problem 12-5: The Corrupt Governor

2. Required investigation by prosecutors before charges are filed

3 Concealment of exculpatory evidence

The Duke lacrosse case

4. Unreliable evidence

5. Pretrial publicity

6. Enforcement

Ellen Yaroshefsky, Wrongful Convictions: It Is Time to Take

Prosecution Discipline Seriously

C Conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice

Problem 12-6: A Letter of Commendation

D. Are lawyers really too zealous?

Ted Schneyer, Moral Philosophy’s Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics

Chapter 13: The Provision of Legal Services

A. The unmet need for legal services

B Sources of free legal services for those who cannot afford legal fees

1. Right to counsel for indigent litigants

a. Criminal defendants

Richard C. Dieter, With Justice for Few: The Growing Crisis in Death Penalty Representation

b Parties in civil and administrative proceedings

2. Civil legal aid

a Legal Services Corporation

Alan W. Houseman & Linda E. Perle, Securing Equal Justice for All: A Brief History of Civil Legal Assistance in the United States

Problem 13-1: Restrictions on Legal Services

b. Other civil legal services

c. The IOLTA controversy

3. Fee-shifting statutes

a Fee waiver as a term of a settlement

b. Who is a “prevailing party ” entitled to attorneys ’ fees?

Margaret Graham Tebo, Fee-Shifting Fallout

4 Pro bono representation

Judith L. Maute, Changing Conceptions of Lawyers’ Pro Bono Responsibilities: From Chance Noblesse Oblige to Stated Expectations

Problem 13-2: Mandatory Pro Bono Service

5 Loan forgiveness and scholarships for public service lawyers

C. Restrictions on participation by nonlawyers in providing legal services

1. Unauthorized practice of law statutes

David C. Vladeck, Statement Before the ABA Commission on Nonlawyer Practice

Problem 13-3: Special Education

2. The prohibition of multidisciplinary practice

3 The prohibition of nonlawyer investment in law firms

Problem 13-4: Service to the Poor and Middle Class

Chapter 14: The American Legal Profession: Past, Present, and Future

A History and development of the U S legal profession

1. Pre-revolutionary America

2. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries

3. A short history of American legal education

B. Advertising and solicitation

1 Advertising of legal services

Bates v. State Bar of Arizona

2. Solicitation of clients

Problem 14-1: Do You Need a Lawyer?

C. Diversity and discrimination in U.S. law firms

1 Women

Problem 14-2: The Job Interview

2 People of color

3. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lawyers

4. Lawyers with disabilities

5 Other bases of discrimination

D. Legal culture in certain practice settings

1 Large firms

Michael Asimow, Embodiment of Evil: Law Firms in the Movies

Patrick J. Schiltz, On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession

2. Small firms

a. Salaries and attrition

b. Setting one ’ s own schedule

c Bringing in business

d. Promotion in small firms

e. Other features of small-firm life

f Urban versus rural practice

g. Gender patterns in small firms

h The future of small firms

i. Small firms and the Internet

3. Government and nonprofit organizations

E. Work settings for lawyers: Culture and satisfaction

F. The business of law practice in the twenty-first century

1 The 2008 recession: Impact on the legal profession

2. Structural changes in private law practice

3. Temporary and contract lawyers

4. Lawyers in retail stores

5. The Internet as a substitute for legal services

6 Outsourcing legal work to cut labor costs: Offshoring and onshoring

7. Multistate practice: A challenge to state-based licensing

Stephen Gillers, It’s an MJP World: Model Rules Revisions Open the Door for Lawyers to Work Outside Their Home Jurisdictions

8. Globalization of law practice

9. New methods of financing law firms and legal work

About the Authors

Table of Articles, Books, and Reports

Table of Cases

Table of Rules, Restatements, Statutes, Bar Opinions, and Other Standards

Index

Table of Problems

Chapter 1: The Regulation of Lawyers

1-1 The New Country

1-2 Weed

1-3 The Doctored Resume

Chapter 2: Lawyer Liability

2-1 The Dying Mother

2-2 “I’m Not Driving”

2-3 Exculpatory Evidence

2-4 The Little Hearing

Chapter 3: The Duty to Protect Client Confidences

3-1 Your Dinner with Anna

3-2 The Missing Persons, Scene 1

3-3 The Missing Persons, Scene 2

3-4 The Missing Persons, Scene 3

3-5 Rat Poison

3-6 Reese’s Leases

3-7 An Investment Project

Chapter 4: The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine

4-1 Murder for Hire

4-2 A Secret Confession

4-3 Worldwide Bribery

Chapter 5: Relationships Between Lawyers and Clients

5-1 The Washing Machine

5-2 A Desire to Investigate

5-3 Torture

5-4 The Package Bomber

5-5 Vinyl Windows

5-6 Tightening the Knot

5-7 The Foster Child

5-8 The Candid Notes

Chapter 6: Conflicts of Interest: Current Clients

6-1 The Injured Passengers, Scene 1

6-2 Food Poisoning

6-3 I Thought You Were My Lawyer!

6-4 The Injured Passengers, Scene 2

6-5 The Prisoners’ Dilemma

6-6 Top Gun

6-7 The Secret Affair

Chapter 7: Current Client Conflicts in Particular Practice Settings

7-1 A Motion to Disqualify

7-2 My Client’s Subsidiary

7-3 Police Brutality, Scene 1

7-4 Police Brutality, Scene 2

7-5 Police Brutality, Scene 3

7-6 Termination of Parental Rights

7-7 Representing the McCarthys

7-8 Two Masters

Chapter 8: Conflicts Involving Former Clients

8-1 Keeping in Touch

8-2 Toxic Waste

8-3 A Brief Consultation

8-4 The Fatal Shot

Chapter 9: Conflicts Between Lawyers and Clients

9-1 An Unreasonable Fee?

9-2 Rising Prices

9-3 An Impoverished Client

Chapter 10: Conflicts Issues for Government Lawyers and Judges

10-1 The District Attorney

10-2 A Trip to Monte Carlo

10-3 The Judge’s Former Professor

Chapter 11: Lawyers’ Duties to Courts

11-1 Your Visit from Paula Jones

11-2 Flight From Sudan, Scene 1

11-3 Flight From Sudan, Scene 2

11-4 The Drug Test

11-5 The Body Double

11-6 Refreshing Recollection

11-7 Child Pornography

11-8 The Damaging Documents

11-9 A Letter to the Editor

Chapter 12: Lawyers’ Duties to Adversaries and Third Persons

12-1 Emergency Food Stamps

12-2 The Complaining Witness

12-3 The Break-In

12-4 The Prosecutor’s Masquerade

12-5 The Corrupt Governor

12-6 A Letter of Commendation

Chapter 13: The Provision of Legal Services

13-1 Restrictions on Legal Services

13-2 Mandatory Pro Bono Service

13-3 Special Education

13-4 Service to the Poor and Middle Class

Chapter 14: The American Legal Profession: Past, Present, and Future

14-1 Do You Need a Lawyer?

14-2 The Job Interview

Preface to the Fourth Edition for Teachers and Students

This book is an introduction to the law that governs lawyers. It includes two chapters on the history, structure, and future of the legal profession

Our goals

Our principal goals in writing this book were to offer an overview of the law governing lawyers and to provide materials through which law students may explore some of the ethical problems that lawyers encounter in practice. Also, we sought to provide opportunities for law students to consider the various professional roles that lawyers occupy and the moral quandaries that students will struggle with when they begin to practice law. For example, in negotiating a settlement for a client, a lawyer might say that his client would refuse to accept less than $100,000, even though the client has told the lawyer that she would be delighted to receive $50,000. This is deceptive, but lawyers commonly use this tactic to obtain favorable outcomes for their clients Does the pervasiveness of this type of deception make it acceptable? Is a lawyer’s only duty to get the best result for his client, or does he also owe his opposing counsel a duty of honesty?

This book introduces students to many aspects of the law that governs lawyers. The book does not include an encyclopedic analysis of every ethical rule, much less the entire body of law governing the legal profession We focus primarily on the subjects that are most likely to arise during the first years of an individual’s law practice. For example, many new lawyers become associates in law firms, so this book explores what an associate should do when a more senior associate or a partner asks the associate to do something that seems improper. Also, most new lawyers in private practice make frequent decisions about how to record their time for billing purposes This book includes many problems that arise from everyday practice issues. Most of the examples and problems in this book involve lawyers who represent individuals or businesses in matters involving contracts, torts, criminal prosecution and defense, civil litigation, real estate, and family law. We have sought to develop problems and to select cases in which a student can understand the facts and the ethical issues regardless of whether the student has taken advanced courses in law school

The problem-based approach

This book offers opportunities to explore ethical dilemmas that have actually arisen in practice, some of which have resulted in published judicial decisions. While we have excerpted or summarized some important judicial opinions in the book, we have transformed a larger number of cases into problems for class discussion. Instead of reprinting the appellate opinions, we have presented the essential facts of these cases as one of the lawyers saw them, walking the cases backward in time to the moment at which the lawyer had to make a difficult choice based on both ethical and strategic considerations. Rather than building the book primarily around predigested legal analyses by appellate judges, we invite students to put themselves in the shoes of lawyers who face difficult choices among possible actions. The dilemmas in most of our problems are based on tough situations that have confronted real lawyers

Evaluating ethical dilemmas in class will help students to handle similar quandaries when they encounter them in practice A student who has worked through the problems assigned in this course will know where in the law a particular issue might be addressed, how to begin to analyze the relevant rules, and what questions to ask. Grappling with these problems also will increase students’ awareness of ethical issues that otherwise might have

gone unnoticed.1

We set out to write an introduction to the law governing lawyers that students would enjoy reading. Studies show that by the third year of law school, the class attendance rate is only about 60 percent and that a majority of those students who do attend class read the assignments for half or fewer than half of the classes they attend 2 Increasingly, law students use their computers to play solitaire or write e-mail during class 3 Law schools seem to be failing in their efforts to retain the interest and attention of their students, particularly third-year law students. We have sought to write a book whose content and methodology capture and sustain the reader’s interest. This aspiration is reflected in our choice of topics and materials, our concise summaries of the law, our challenging problems, and our use of graphic materials

Defining features of this book

We built a number of unique features into this book based on our experience teaching professional responsibility classes:

Almost every section of the book begins by summarizing the relevant doctrine that provides the legal background students need to analyze the problems that follow. Most summarized rules and doctrines appear in question-and-answer format. This structure provides an ongoing roadmap, anticipating readers’ questions and forecasting the content of the next subtopic.

Numerous concrete examples, set off from the text, further illustrate the general doctrinal principles.

This book has very few judicial opinions. Law students read an abundant number of judicial opinions in other courses Professional responsibility is best taught using a problem-based approach. The few opinions in the text, which will be familiar to teachers of professional responsibility, are edited carefully to present only the most relevant sections. Some opinions are summarized rather than reprinted so that students can move quickly to the book’s challenging application problems. Reproduced court opinions contain both original headings and our inserted ones to help orient students to the logic of the opinions.

The approximately 70 problems that appear in the book are designed to focus class discussion and immediately engage students by describing real-life ethical dilemmas. The problems present facts from real cases in narrative form to allow students to analyze the issues as if they were the lawyers facing those dilemmas. This structure tends to produce livelier discussion than does the autopsy method traditionally used in law classes, in which teachers invite post hoc dissection of court opinions

Pertinent rules of professional conduct are included in the book so that students do not need to flip constantly back and forth between this text and a statutory

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