Legal Ethics: A Beginner’s Guide

This post is coauthored by Barbara Bavis and Robert Brammer, legal reference specialists.

Everyone has a favorite lawyer joke. Robert encountered his favorite in the waiting room of a law office. Sitting on a table was a book titled, “Lawyer’s Book of Ethics.” It was blank. Notwithstanding this perception, the reality is that law is a highly regulated profession. When lawyers pass the bar, they not only gain the privilege to practice law within a certain jurisdiction, they also incur the obligation to adhere to the Rules of Professional Conduct proscribed by that jurisdiction. If they fail to uphold this obligation, they can be punished in a variety of ways, including reprimand, suspension, and even disbarment. Whether you are a lawyer reviewing the rules regulating legal ethics in your jurisdiction or a member of the public searching for the rules that govern the attorney-client relationship, this Beginner’s Guide will provide you with a research pathway into the domain of legal ethics.

Books

The Law Library of Congress has quite a few resources that focus on legal ethics in the United States.  Please find a selection of these materials listed below.

General

• Legal Ethics in a Nutshell, by Ronald D. Rotunda
• Professional Conduct and the Law, by Constance Frisby Fain
• Acing Professional Responsibility: A Checklist Approach to Professional Responsibility Problems, by Leslie W. Abramson
• Understanding Lawyers’ Ethics, by Monroe H. Freedman & Abbe Smith
• Law in Motion: Professional Responsibility, by  Michael McCord
• Mastering Professional Responsibility, by Grace M. Giesel
• Red Flags: A Lawyer’s Handbook on Legal Ethics, by Lawrence J. Fox & Susan R. Martyn
• The Law of Lawyering, by Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr. & W. William Hodes, with assistance by John S. Dzienkowski & John S. Redditt
• Legal Ethics: The Lawyer’s Deskbook on Professional Responsibility, by Ronald D. Rotunda & John S. Dzienkowski

Rules/Restatements/Citators

• Restatement of the Law, the Law Governing Lawyers, by the American Law Institute
• ABA Compendium of Professional Responsibility Rules and Standards
• The Law Governing Lawyers: National Rules, Standards, Statutes, and State Lawyer Codes
• Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards, edited by Stephen Gillers, Roy D. Simon, Jr., & Andrew M. Perlman
• Compendium of Client Protection Rules, by the American Bar Association, Center for Professional Responsibility
• Annotated model rules of professional conduct, by the Center for Professional Responsibility, American Bar Association
• Professional Responsibility Standards, Rules & Statutes, edited by John S. Dzienkowski
• Legal Ethics: Rules, Statutes and Comparisons, edited by Richard A. Zitrin
• Model Rules of Professional Conduct and Other Selected Standards Including California and New York Rules on Professional Responsibility
• ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct
• Shepard’s Professional and Judicial Conduct Citations

Specific Areas

• Prosecutorial Misconduct, by Bennett L. Gershman
• Professional Responsibility in Criminal Defense Practice, by John Wesley Hall, Jr.
• Criminal Defense Ethics 2d: Law and Liability, compiled by John M. Burkoff
• Patent Ethics: Prosecution, by David Hricik & Mercedes Meyer
• Patent Ethics: Litigation, by David Hricik
• Professional Responsibility in Litigation, by Douglas R. Richmond, Brian S. Faughnan, & Michael L. Matula

As we have suggested in previous Beginner’s Guides, many, if not all, of these resources can be found in a library near you by using the WorldCat catalog. When you select a resource from your search results list in WorldCat, scroll down to the “Find a copy in my library” section, enter your zip code (or city and country, for those not in the United States), and WorldCat will list the libraries closest to you that own that resource.  You can then click on the library’s name to be taken to the resource’s entry in that library’s catalog.

Rules of Professional Conduct

As you may note, many of the sources above reference the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct, a copy of which can be found online. The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct are advisory, but compelling evidence of a lawyer’s ethical obligations. Jurisdictions may choose to adopt the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct in whole or in part. When adopted, the commentaries to the rules can prove very helpful, providing further explanation of the intent of those rules.

The rules of professional conduct for each state, which bind the lawyers licensed in that jurisdiction, are typically adopted by that state’s highest court and are enforced by that state’s bar association.  Typically, the rules of professional conduct are made available on the state bar association’s website, along with ethics opinions that inform lawyers on the application of the rules to specific facts. Many state bar associations also provide ethics hotlines that help will advise a lawyer of compliance strategies for a given situation. State bar association websites can also be invaluable for the non-lawyer, providing access to the rules that govern the lawyer-client relationship and to information on how to file a complaint if you feel a lawyer has failed to adhere to these rules. In addition, most state bar association websites provide public access to a lawyer’s disciplinary history for a given period of time.

Websites

In addition to each state’s bar association, there are several other organizations that provide information about ethics-related standards, rules, and statutes that apply to attorneys.  Some of these informational websites include:

• “Ethics Resources,” National State Attorneys General Program
•  “Links of Interest,” The Center for Professional Responsibility, American Bar Association
• “Research Guides: Legal Ethics,” Duke University School of Law
• “American Legal Ethics Library,” Cornell Legal Information Institute (ceased updating in 2013)
• “State-by-State Jurisdiction Information,” National Organization of Bar Counsel

We hope you found this guide useful. If there are any sources you would like to add, please feel free to comment below.