Ethics, Legal Boundaries, Privacy, and Professional Conduct
This domain tests judgment under pressure. Hawaii licensees must serve clients while respecting privacy, court process, and the rights of third parties. Exam scenarios often present a client demand that is useful but unlawful, or a technique that is legal in one setting but not another. The correct answer usually combines refusal, documentation, and a lawful alternative.
Professional duties
- Confidentiality: client information should be shared only on a need-to-know basis or as required by law, court order, or client consent. Secure notes and files.
- Conflicts: decline or disclose work that creates a personal stake, a prior-client conflict, or an incentive to shade findings.
- Legal boundaries: do not impersonate law enforcement, access computers or phone records without authorization, obtain financial information by pretexting, trespass, stalk, harass, or use GPS tracking without consent or legal authority.
- Truthful dealing: advertising, billing, testimony, and reports must be accurate. Do not promise outcomes, pay for testimony, or offer contingent fees for testimony.
- Board obligations: report changes and respond honestly to board inquiries. Convictions and unprofessional conduct can support discipline even outside a specific assignment.
Worked example
A client asks you to call a bank, pretend to be the account holder, and obtain statements. You should refuse. Pretexting for financial records implicates federal financial-privacy law and Hawaii fraud and computer-crime provisions; the client’s authorization does not override the bank’s legal duties or the account holder’s rights. Lawful alternatives include requesting records from the client, using a subpoena in litigation, or obtaining a signed authorization that the bank will accept.
Traps
- Treating client authorization as a universal legal defense.
- Confusing publicly visible with freely recordable; privacy expectations still matter.
- Using true information to harass or defame.
- Letting a contingent fee or future business affect findings.
- Deleting notes or “cleaning up” a report after a dispute.