The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
"Legal representation of an organization is rarely as straightforward as representing a single person. The client in such cases is a construct--a legal fiction--that often operates through many individuals with different roles, views, and interests, and therefore requires an attorney to consider any number of special professional-responsibility issues. [This] is the first book to practically address ethics within the special contest of representing entities"--Provided by publisher.
How do lawyers resolve ethical dilemmas in the everyday context of their practice? What are the issues that commonly arise, and how do lawyers determine the best ways to resolve them? Until recently, efforts to answer these questions have focused primarily on rules and legal doctrine rather than the real-life situations lawyers face in legal practice. The first book to present empirical research on ethical decision making in a variety of practice contexts, including corporate litigation, securities, immigration, and divorce law, Lawyers in Practice fills a substantial gap in the existing literature. Following an introduction emphasizing the increasing importance of understanding context in the legal profession, contributions focus on ethical dilemmas ranging from relatively narrow ethical issues to broader problems of professionalism, including the prosecutor’s obligation to disclose evidence, the management of conflicts of interest, and loyalty to clients and the court. Each chapter details the resolution of a dilemma from the practitioner’s point of view that is, in turn, set within a particular community of practice. Timely and practical, this book should be required reading for law students as well as students and scholars of law and society.
The representation of organizations and working life in the popular media signifies, but also helps shape, contemporary practice and institutions. Organization-Representation unravels the complex social relationship between organization and its representation, offering new insights into the interaction between the popular images we create and receive, and the power relations that govern society, working life and culture. Representations in Hollywood movies, ethnographic and documentary films, children's literature and the popular and `quality' press replicate the power structures they supposedly describe and consequently help shape contemporary realities. This volume offers rich insights into the relations between cu
This concise book brings behavioral insights to the wide array of topics commonly taught in the required professional responsibility course, including admission to the practice of law, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, representing entities, prosecutorial and criminal defense ethics, litigation and negotiation ethics, legal billing, and managerial and subordinate responsibilities. Behavioral legal ethics relies on empirical research to explore how lawyers actually make ethical decisions in context, rather than how they predict they would decide an ethical dilemma. This approach complements the law of lawyering by seeking to understand how various psychological factors and situational pressures explain and influence decision-making and resulting ethical (or unethical) action. Each chapter explores findings from behavioral science that pertain to ethical decision-making such as motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and other cognitive biases, fast thinking, the fundamental attribution error, wrongful obedience, conformity, moral disengagement, and much more. In addition, each chapter contains relevant case studies and reflection questions to deepen and cement students' understanding of the role of behavioral legal ethics in professional responsibility. Finally, the book offers ideas for individual attorneys and legal organizations to improve ethical decision-making. The book can be used as a stand-alone text in a required professional responsibility course, along with the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and select cases and materials, or it can be used as a supplement to a professional responsibility casebook. In addition, the book can be used in advanced legal ethics courses. The authors, both scholars in the field of behavioral legal ethics, are professional responsibility professors who have incorporated behavioral legal ethics into their own classrooms. They have found that students enjoy studying and discussing behavioral insights, and that integrating a behavioral focus to the study of legal ethics helps students better understand the ethical doctrines, policy, and context that underlie the law of lawyering and the ABA Model Rules. A sampling of student testimonials include: "I found the psychology of legal ethics extremely helpful. It really allowed me to focus in on the issues I know I will be challenged with when I enter the legal profession." "I liked how the course was not just putting the rule on the board and going over it, which I have heard some professors do. I liked looking at the rules through a behavioral science lens." "I appreciated the unique take from the behavioral sciences side." "It is kind of hard to imagine studying ethics without any mention of the psychological issues at this point."
This casebook offers students accessible, teachable, and insightful primary material, problems, and notes that clarify and encourage analysis of the law governing lawyers. The book’s innovative pedagogy uses a combination of problems faced by fictitious law firm “Martyn and Fox,” cases, ethics opinions, notes, and tables to support its focus on teaching the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers and invite consideration of lawyer ethical dilemmas. The book’s manageable length makes it short enough to provide focus, but long enough to convey the rich texture of the subject. New to the Fifth Edition: New co-authors Profs. Ana Pottratz Acosta and Ashley M. London bring to this edition their combined years of legal practice, clinical legal education, expertise in legal analysis, and classroom pedagogy. Expanded coverage of agency law and fiduciary duties, along with new and updated cases, ethics opinions, problems, notes, and tables. 6 new court decisions, including In re Giuliani (summary disbarment) and King v. Whitmer (frivolous lawsuit sanctions). 8 new ethics opinions address contemporary issues, such as e-lawyering, client fraud on administrative agencies and courts, lawyer-directors and entity clients, immigration, and representing fiduciary clients who harm beneficiaries. 16 “Afterwords” provide students with additional information about the parties and the subsequent impact of cases. Professors and students will benefit from: Comprehensive coverage of a wide range of ethical issues and remedies through a combination of 138 short problems, 55 cases, 16 afterwords, 13 ethics opinions, 13 tables, and explanatory notes throughout that showcase and clarify the law governing lawyers. Student-accessible, teachable problems encourage nuanced explorations of the Model Rules, Restatement, cases, and materials, suited to both large- and small-classes. Thematic notes introduce students to sources and content of the law governing lawyers and commentary about the legal profession organized around recurring themes: Lawyers’ Roles (lawyers who suffer consequences by under- or over-identifying with clients and those who avoid these dangers) The Law Governing Lawyers (professional discipline, tort liability, and equitable remedies, including undue influence presumptions, constructive trusts, fee forfeiture, disqualification, injunctive relief, and procedural sanctions) The Bounds of the Law (the rules of professional conduct, court orders, fraud, crime, and applicable statutes) Lawyers and Clients (ethics issues arising in specific client representations, such as pro bono, criminal and insurance defense, organizations, and governments) Text is short enough to cover in a typical course but detailed enough to provide thorough treatment of the issues at hand. Annual supplement including Model Rules, Restatement, and Code of Judicial Conduct.
A complexity perspective on leadership, this book considers factors such as risk and conflict, spontaneity and motivation, bullying and the use/abuse of power to express a new view of business ethics.
For the criminal justice system to work, adequate resources must be available for police, prosecutors and public defense. This timely, incisive and important book by Professor Norman Lefstein looks carefully at one leg of the justice system's "three-legged stool"public defenseand the chronic overload of cases faced by public defenders and other lawyers who represent the indigent. Fortunately, the publication does far more than bemoan the current lack of adequate funding, staffing and other difficulties faced by public defense systems in the U.S. and offers concrete suggestions for dealing with these serious issues.
