Legal Ethics and Professional Conduct: Duties That Bind
The advocate's dual duty
Ethics questions test whether you can balance duties to the client, the court, and the profession. The duty to act diligently and in the client's best interest never authorises misleading the court.
Concepts you must command
Understand the duty of confidentiality, its scope, and its exceptions. Understand conflict of interest, including successive and concurrent conflicts. Know the rules on fees and touting, the prohibition on appearing where you are a witness, and the duty to decline instructions outside competence. Understand client account handling, the duty to account for money, and the obligation to maintain records. Understand courtesy to the bench and opposing counsel, and the duty to disclose adverse authority.
Traps that appear in questions
- Disclosing client confidences to family or friends as though the duty were informal.
- Acting for both sides in a transaction.
- Accepting a brief and then discovering a conflict but continuing silently.
- Treating the duty of confidentiality as ending when the retainer ends.
- Using information from a former client against that client.
Rule of thumb
When facing an ethical dilemma, ask: whose interest is at stake, what would the court expect, and would I be comfortable if the conduct were reported? If any answer is uncomfortable, decline or disclose.
Worked example
An advocate learns from a former client that a company is about to be sued, and is then approached by the opposing party. The analysis: confidential information from the former client cannot be used against that client; the advocate must decline the new brief. The duty survives the end of the retainer.