Course Details

Description:

Professional Responsibility of the Government Lawyer:

This course is a survey of rules of professional responsibility for lawyers with an emphasis on the rules that apply to lawyers working for the government. Issues covered include client conflicts for lawyers moving in and out of government, who is the client of a lawyer representing a government agency, the ethics of opinion writing for the Department of Justice and other government agencies, ethics rules for prosecutors, ethics rules and other regulations pertaining to political activity by government employees (the Hatch Act), federal conflict of interest rules for current and former government employees, federal gift rules, federal financial disclosure rules, ethics rules for judges and a brief survey of developments under state ethics law.

Description:

Professional Responsibility for the Business Lawyer:

This course is a survey of rules of professional responsibility for lawyers with an emphasis on the rules that apply to lawyers in corporate and transactionsal practice. Issues covered include client conflicts, representing close corporations and partnerships, representing venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in start ups, taking stock in lieu of legal fees, representing public companies, Securities Exchange Commission rules of professional responsibility for lawyers under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, representing banks and other regulated companies, the role of in-house counsel, the responsibility of lawyers for client conduct and malpractice liability for business lawyers.

Description:

This course will begin with foundational topics: the nature of legal ethics, the attorney-client relationship, the authorities governing legal ethics, especially the Rules of Professional Conduct. The main focus of this course will be applications of the Rules to civil litigation. The main structure will follow the order of civil litigation: client intake, conflict analysis and checking, confidentiality, investigation, pleading, discovery, trial, appeal, negotiations and settlement. The main readings will be from a new, online treatise, William J. Wernz, Minnesota Legal Ethics. Readings will also include cases and diverse ethics materials, e.g. disqualification motions, law firm ethics policies and procedures, conflict waivers, disciplines, and engagement letters.

Description:

The basic text for the course is Lawyers' Ethics by Monroe Freedman and Abbe Smith. Other readings will be assigned. We will view a number of films. We will study the ethical dilemmas of the prosecution, defense, and judge in a criminal case. We will address the limits on the lawyer's duty of zealous representation in our adversary system. Must you be the devil's advocate? Must you take advantage of an adversary's mistake, especially if you are the prosecutor? We will address client confidentiality. Must the defense lawyer who learns of the location of critical evidence divulge it to the prosecutor or court? We will address perjury and the search for the truth, the coaching of witnesses, and the ethics of cross examination and closing argument in the criminal case. We will address prosecutors' ethics in the context of the decision to charge a crime, the disclosure of exculpatory evidence to the defense, rewarding cooperation, and the handling of informants, codefendant witnesses, witnesses who have been paid, and other unsavory characters. We will study conflicts of interests for the prosecutor and defense lawyer. We will study the ethics of plea bargaining from the perspective of prosecution and defense. We will discuss the need for the impartial judge, the role of the judge in the criminal case, and the ethics of sentencing. We will view a number of films presenting these ethical questions.