DESCRIPTION
How Ethics Rules Apply to Lawyers Outside of Law Practice
Ethics rules are intended primarily to regulate lawyer acts when practicing law. But the rules do not always stop there. Lawyers can be held responsible and disciplined under ethics rules for things they do when acting outside of their practices. Lawyers may be disciplined under ethics rules for criminal conduct, including misdemeanors, entirely unrelated to their lawyerly conduct. They may be also be disciplined for any acts that involve dishonesty, misrepresentation, or any actions prejudicial to the judicial system. This program will provide you with a guide to circumstances in which ethics rules apply to lawyers when they act outside of law practice.
- Dishonesty and misrepresentation when a lawyer is acting as a non-lawyer
- Lawyers as business people – how counter-parties can allege ethical misconduct
- Self-representation – when lawyers represent themselves in litigation, who can they communicate with?
- Violations of law, including misdemeanors, as ethics violations
- Restrictions on lawyers’ ability to market themselves in non-lawyer roles
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 2000 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 900 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.