This course will cover key areas of legal ethics from the perspective that the legal ethics rules and current disciplinary systems are, at best, the minimum standard that we lawyers should have in the field of ethics. Key model and state ethics rules will be evaluated that apply to your daily practice of law and suggestions will be made for how to improve these ethical rules both for the profession, and most importantly, for how you and your firm or legal organization practices law. This course will discuss how your firm or legal organization should write its own superior rules of legal ethics or “code of conduct.” In addition, this course will cover strategies you can use from how the initial retainer letter is drafted, through representation and termination of reputation to assist your clients in becoming more ethical. This course incorporates leadership strategies and is taught by a person with a forty-year track record of teaching ethics and promoting the improvement of ethics in the legal profession. This course will also describe how to improve your reputation in your community for legal ethics and how to use legal ethics to expand and improve your law practice.
Principles
- Discussion of ethical rules and lawyer disciplinary systems that need substantial improvement
- New analytical frameworks to assist you, your firm, your clients and opposing counsel and clients in being more ethical
- How to establish and live by higher ethical standards for your law practice
- How to improve your reputation in the field of ethics as a lawyer and become more successful in many aspects of your legal career.
- How to identify and deal successfully with those who fail to meet the current standards for legal ethics in our profession.
Syllabus
- How to think critically about legal ethics
- How to write and publish a code of conduct for your law firm
- How to report lawyers who do not conform to legal ethics without violating client confidentiality
- Expanding and improving your legal practice through building your reputation in ethics
- How to improve the lawyer disciplinary process in your state and among federal agencies