Professional Responsibility

Chatman/Donweber: This course offers an approach to the lawyer's responsibilities to clients, the profession, and the public. Topics addressed will be problems of disclosure, conflict of interest, advertising, adversary tactics, competence, attorney fees, and fiduciary duties. Cunha: The goals of the Professional Responsibility course are first and foremost to give you a good working knowledge of the Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers, how those rules have been interpreted by the ABA and State Disciplinary Boards, and how those rules are likely to be applied in real-world practice settings confronted by attorneys on a daily basis. This course will enable you not only to research, locate, interpret and apply the relevant legal standard, but also to give you the analytical tools necessary to handle the tough ethical dilemmas you may encounter in your own practice. Through the readings, class discussions and guest speakers, the course will provide you an ethical “toolbox” to supplement the positive law, in order to assist you in constructing ethical and moral arguments and navigating ethical dilemmas not explicitly addressed by the attorney discipline rules. NOTE: This course satisfies the upper-class Professional Responsibility requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.