Professional Ethics, Communication, and Client Relations
This domain tests judgment: how you handle conflicts of interest, confidential information, competence limits, and the everyday communication that prevents disputes.
Core rules
- Competence: accept work only where you are qualified; bring in a structural engineer, code consultant, or lighting designer when scope exceeds your training, and say so in writing.
- Conflict of interest: disclose any commission, referral fee, or ownership interest in a vendor or product you specify, and obtain the client's written consent. Undisclosed compensation from a trade is a violation.
- Confidentiality: client information, plans, and budgets are not yours to reuse, publish, or show to a prospective client asking for something similar.
- Honesty in marketing: no false credentials, no claiming a license you do not hold, correct use of titles and certification language.
- Communication: written meeting minutes and decision logs, one point of contact, defined response times, and documented client approval at each phase.
- Fees: do not provide free design as bid bait, and do not disparage another designer.
Worked example
A fabricator offers a 10% commission on a custom vanity. Two ethical paths: decline the commission, or disclose it in writing and either credit it to the client or retain it with documented consent. Separately, the client approved an allowance that assumed a stock cabinet, not custom millwork - that gap must be disclosed in writing before the order is placed, because silence now becomes a dispute at installation.
Traps
- Specifying from a company you own or advise without disclosure.
- Reusing a prior client's drawings for a new project.
- Letting a contractor route instructions around the client.
- Passive silence in a meeting that later becomes you approved it.