Ethics, Professional Conduct, and Conflicts of Interest
What the exam tests
Ethics questions test judgment under pressure: client loyalty, truthfulness, confidentiality, and avoidance of conflicts. Kentucky licensees are expected to obey the law, avoid misrepresentation, and keep the client’s interests subordinate to legal and ethical limits.
Core duties
- Competence: accept only work you can lawfully and reliably perform.
- Honesty: reports, testimony, and representations to clients and courts must be accurate.
- Confidentiality: protect client information, but disclose when law or court order requires.
- Conflicts: identify any personal, financial, or prior-client interest that could bias the work; disclose and withdraw if the conflict cannot be managed.
- No impersonation of law enforcement, no unlawful inducement, no destruction or concealment of evidence.
Worked example
An investigator is retained by an insurer to document a claimant’s activities. The claimant’s attorney later asks the same investigator to locate a witness in the same matter. The investigator should decline the second engagement absent informed consent from both sides and a clear screen, because the prior file may contain confidential information and the roles are adverse. Loyalty to the first client and confidentiality outweigh the new fee.
Traps
Calling zealous advocacy a license to mislead; accepting a fee contingent on testimony; failing to check who the real client is; and treating a conflict waiver as automatic when one side is unrepresented.