Professionalism: Key to Ethical Lawyering and Trustworthy Justice

As Frank Sinatra sang about love and marriage, “You can’t have one without the other.” Old Blue Eyes could have just as quickly (and more accurately) been crooning about professionalism and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, now adopted in some form by all U.S jurisdictions. As they are, the Rules in every jurisdiction can act as a trap, luring otherwise competent and ethical lawyers into mistakes and dangerous assumptions that can harm clients and the lawyers themselves. Professionalism is the quality that makes lawyers trustworthy and is the crucial element in the legal ethics equation, for it renders the generalizations and often outdated declarations of the so-called “laws of lawyering” into practical and versatile guidance.

This program explores some of the most perplexing and long-lasting practice challenges that the Rules of Professional Conduct emphatically do not solve and uses them to demonstrate how professionalism, far from representing some unrealistic ideal, serves as a crucial tool in resolving the problem to the benefit of all concerned, especially the justice system itself.

Professionalism: The Essential Ingredient of Ethical Lawyering and a Trustworthy Justice System will engage, challenge, and enlighten practitioners at all levels who want to hone their skills at recognizing these critical situations when they arise, enhancing their skill at handling them effectively, competently, and in the best traditions of their profession.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the limits of mere formal compliance with the ethics rules, as well as understand how they should be used and why they must be regularly reconsidered
• Master “ethics chess,” the process of recognizing and anticipating ethics issues in legal practice at the earliest possible time
• Develop tools and techniques to address common legal ethics dilemmas by considering and discussing challenging hypothetical situations based on actual cases

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Central Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Mountain Time: 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Pacific Time: 6:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Alaska Time: 5:00 AM - 7:00 AM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 4:00 AM - 6:00 AM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Thursday, July 25, 2024
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Thursday, October 31, 2024