DESCRIPTION
When the Law or Facts Are Against You: Ethical Considerations for Lawyers
Every lawyer wrestles with how to handle facts or law that is unfavorable to a client. There is a natural tension between a lawyer’s duty to be honest, on the one hand, and the lawyer’s duty to provide zealous representation of a client. In some instances, bad facts or bad law must be disclosed. In other instances, disclosure is not required. How this tension is resolved involves substantial ethical issues. This program will discuss the ethics issues involved and how they may be resolved in a practical setting. Ethical issues surrounding the representation of adverse facts to tribunals and adversaries
- Disclosure of adverse legal precedents
- Required discloses of bad facts or law
- Timing issues – when must the disclosure occur?
- Related issues of confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege
- Ex parte communications with the courts – what’s ethically permissible, what’s not?
Speaker:
Thomas E. Spahn is of counsel in the Tysons Corners, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, where he advises firm clients on professional responsibility issues and properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections.He has served on the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and is a Member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.He has written extensively on attorney-client privilege, ethics and other topics, and has spoken at over 2200 CLE programs throughout the U.S. and in several foreign countries.Through links on his website biography, he has made available to the public his summaries of over 1,600 Virginia and ABA legal ethics opinions, organized by topic; a 300 page summary of his two-volume 1,500 page book on the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine; over 1100 weekly email alerts about privilege and work product cases; and materials for 40 ethics programs on numerous topics, totaling over 9,000 pages of analysis.
Disclaimer: All views or opinions expressed by any presenter during the course of this CLE is that of the presenter alone and not an opinion of the Oklahoma Bar Association, the employers, or affiliates of the presenters unless specifically stated. Additionally, any materials, including the legal research, are the product of the individual contributor, not the Oklahoma Bar Association. The Oklahoma Bar Association makes no warranty, express or implied, relating to the accuracy or content of these materials.