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Teleconference

Professionalism for the Ethical Lawyer


Total Credits: 1 including 1 Ethics

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Categories:
Ethics
Faculty:
Thomas E. Spahn
Original Program Date:
Sep 13, 2024
License:
Never Expires.


Description

Ethics rules, the principles of professionalism, and sanctionable conduct are interrelated.  Lawyers have a duty to zealously represent their clients, but they do not have a duty to engage in offensive conduct that may be desired by clients. Lawyers have duties of confidentiality and honesty, but those duties do not always require pressing every advantage, such as when the lawyer knows that opposing counsel has made a material drafting error in a transactional document. In these and many other scenarios, ethics rules, professionalism, and potentially sanctionable conduct subtly interact.  This program will provide you with a practical guide to professionalism for the ethical lawyer. 

Schedule:

  • Interrelationship of ethics rules, professionalism, and sanctions
  • Zealous representation v. needlessly embarrassing an adversary or third-party
  • Reacting to an adversary’s drafting errors in transactional documents
  • Ethics, professionalism, and inadvertent transmission of communications
  • Duty to supervise and train subordinate lawyers and staff, including to ensure courtesy to clients, opposing counsel, and courts
  • Offering candid advice to clients and withdrawal when they demand offensive conduct
  • Avoiding discrimination and bigotry

Handouts

Faculty

Thomas E. Spahn Related Seminars and Products

McGuireWoods, LLP


Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a substantial practice advising clients on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections.  For more than 30 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written “The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner’s Guide,” a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation.  Mr. Spahn has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee.