Professional Responsibility

Another Look at Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct

Samuel Levine

Abstract Response to Paul R. Tremblay, At Your Service: Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct Professor Paul Tremblay’s At Your Service: Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct, identifies and explores an apparent gap in the law governing the work of lawyers: the question of whether lawyers may assist clients in unlawful conduct […]

Lawyers’ Constrained Fiduciary Duties: A Comment on Paul R. Tremblay, At Your Service: Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct

W. Bradley Wendel

Abstract Response to Paul R. Tremblay, At Your Service: Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct The Model Rules of Professional Conduct seem to have a blind spot. As Professor Paul Tremblay rightly observes, most legal ethics scholars assert that lawyers are prohibited from assisting “unlawful” conduct or, more broadly, client “wrongdoing.” However, Rule 1.2(d), […]

May Lawyers Assist Clients in Some Unlawful Conduct?: A Response to Paul Tremblay

Bruce A. Green

Abstract Response to Paul R. Tremblay, At Your Service: Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct State courts regulate U.S. lawyers by adopting rules governing lawyers’ professional conduct and enforcing the rules through disciplinary processes. Since the early 20th century, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) has assisted courts in this task. Most importantly, the ABA has […]

At Your Service: Lawyer Discretion to Assist Clients in Unlawful Conduct

Written by: Paul Tremblay

Abstract The common, shared vision of lawyers’ ethics holds that lawyers ought not collaborate with clients in wrongdoing. Ethics scholars caution that lawyers “may not participate in or assist illegal conduct,” or “giv[e] legal services to clients who are going to engage in unlawful behavior with the attorney as their accomplice.” That sentiment resonates comfortably […]

Margaret Tarkington, Lost in the Compromise: Free Speech, Criminal Justice, and Attorney Pretrial Publicity

The right to a jury trial, the presumption of innocence, the social compact between the individual and the State—these are among the weighty interests in our criminal justice system that can be bolstered or undermined through attorney pretrial publicity. The procedural protections that exist in the Constitution for criminal justice are neither technicalities nor formalities. […]