1. Legal research II - Advanced
Researching Legal
Ethics
March 29, 2012
Nathan Aaron Rosen
1

2. WARNING
All the opinions and statements
within this presentation are
those of the speaker alone and
do NOT in any way, shape, or
form, reflect the opinion or
position of any of his past or
current employers.
2

3. Dedicated to Steven
Krane
• Taught Legal Ethics
class at Proskauer &
at Columbia University
Law School
• NY State Bar
President
• Ethics expert
• Lead 2009 NYS Ethics
changes as Chair
NYBA Committee on
Standards of
Attorney Conduct
3

4. Today’s class
1. Basics of researching
legal ethics
2. Hypo
3. Working through hypo
4

5. Basics of researching legal ethics
• ABA BNA Manual
• NY Statutes, DR & EC, Model Rules,
Ethics Opinions & Secondary
Authority
• ABA Model Rules, Ethics Opinions &
Secondary Authority
• Other states rules
5

6. Basics continued
• Special situations
• News
• Law firm memos & bloggers
• Law Reviews & other
secondary authority
6

7. 7

8. 8

9. 9

10. Lexis & Westlaw
Coverage of Ethics Material
Topic Lexis Westlaw
ABA Formal 1924 – date 1924 – date
NY State Bar 1986 – date 1977 - date
NY County Bar None 1979 – date
NY City Bar 1986 – date 1986 - date
State Ethics Opinion 7 states 21 states
Restatement of the Law – Law Yes Yes
Governing Lawyers
State cases (1999-2005) 2,654 1,529
State cases (2006-2010) 1,959 1,055
ABA Code & Model Rules Yes Yes
State codes of ethics Yes Yes
Law review articles with ethics 2,560 8,972
citations (2000 to date)
ABA/BNA Lawyers Manual on Yes Yes
Professional Conduct
National Reporter on Legal Yes – exclusive to No
Ethics & Professional LexisNexis &
Responsibility covers 46 state
ethics opinions but
sometime lag times
10

11. Treatises
• Geoffrey Hazard, Jr. and William
Hodes, The Law of Lawyering
• Raymond Wise, Legal Ethics
• Charles Wolfram, Modern Legal
Ethics
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12. Secondary authority
• Restatement of the Law, The law
governing lawyers
• Ray Simon, Simon’s New York Code
of Professional Responsibility
Annotated.
• Encyclopedia (CJS, AmJur or NY
Jur)
• Opinion reporters
– National Reporter on Legal Ethics & Professional
Responsibility
– Mary Daly, The New York Code of Professional
Responsibility: Opinions, Commentary and CaseLaw.
– Eugene M. Eugene, Opinions of the Committee on
Professional Ethics
12

13. Hypo
You are approached by an attorney who is working
with the General Counsel in the Legal Department
(located in New York) of an international
securities corporation. The attorney found out
from their conversations with the GC that she is a
very experienced nationally known attorney (now
living in New Jersey), who has moved jobs located
in three different states and has been licensed
for more than a decade in California, District of
Columbia and New Jersey but not in New York.
13

14. Hypo continued
The attorney asks you if there might be a problem
and whether they should be concerned about
attorney client privilege and whether they might
need to advise the Board or GC regarding legal
issues that involve the corporation, representing
the corporation in negotiation with employees, ex-
employees, counterparties, arbitrations, SEC &
SRO regulatory filings and regulatory agencies,
and in working with outside counsel.
14

15. Working through hypo
• Issues?
• Jurisdiction?
• Residency requirements for practice?
• Any difference between corporation and
a law firm?
• Can they wave in?
• What is practicing law?
15

16. Steps
• ABA BNA Manual
• NY DR & EC and newer Rules
• NY Statutes
• NY Ethics Opinions
• NY Secondary Authority
16

17. NY DR & EC
17

18. 22 NYCRR Part 1200
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19. 19

20. 20

21. 21

22. 22

23. 23

24. 24

25. 25

26. More steps
• ABA Model Code
• ABA Ethics Opinions
• ABA changes
• Secondary authority
• Securities arbitration special situation
• Other states impact – California, DC and
New Jersey
26

27. 27

28. 28

29. 29

30. 30

31. New Jersey
31

32. 32

33. 33

34. Still more steps
• News – reputational risk
issues
• Law firm memos and bloggers
• Law reviews & other
secondary authority
34

35. 35

36. 36

37. 37

38. 38

39. 39

40. 40

41. 41

42. 42

43. New York Changes
43

44. 44

45. 45

46. 46

47. 47

48. 48

49. Problem?
49

50. Web sites
• New York University School of Law
www1.law.nyu.edu/library/legal_ethics_guide.pdf
• Duke University School of Law
www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/pdf/legalethics.pdf
• Georgetown Law Library
www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/legal_ethics.cfm
• Washington University Law School
http://law.wustl.edu/library/index.asp?id=1338
• University of San Francisco Law
www.usfca.edu/law_library/ethre.html
• Cornell University Law Library
http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeDo/ResearchGuides/Legal-Ethics.cfm
• Mercer Law School Library
www.law.mercer.edu/library/Research/Legal%20Ethic%20Final%20Web.htm
• Cleveland Law Library Association
www.clelaw.lib.oh.us/Public/MISC/REGUIDES/guide4B.html
• American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility
www.abanet.org/cpr/
• Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers
www.aprl.net/
50

51. Bibliography of Articles
• Robert Ambrogi, Finding Ethics Via the World Wide Web, Law Technology Product
News, December 1999, page 101 and Chicago Lawyer, December 1998, page 57.
• Dianna Botluk & James Botluk, A Web of Legal Ethics: Rules of Professional Conduct,
LLRX, www.llrx.com/columns/ethics.htm
• Mary Daly, Researching Professional Responsibility Issues in PLI Ethics in Context,
winter 2000, December 2006.
• Darby Dickerson, Ethics on the Web: An Annotated Bibliography of Legal Ethics
Material on the Internet, Stetson Law Review, Vol. 28, Fall 1998, page 369 -
http://justice.law.stetson.edu/lawrev/abstracts/PDF/28-2Dickers.pdf
• Nancy Garner, legal Ethics Resources, by the book or on the web, Intelligencer, Vol.
232, December 5, 2005, page S3.
• Deborah Rhode, Annotated Bibliography of Educational Materials on Legal Ethics, Law
and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 58, Summer/Autumn 1995, page 361.
• Nathan Rosen, Researching Legal Ethics, New York State Bar Journal, Vol. 66,
March/April 1994, page 40.
• Roy Simon, what Every New Attorney Must Know About Legal Ethics, in PLI’s MCLE
Bridge the Gap Program Materials, October-December 1998, page 151.
51

52. Conclusions
• Similarities
• Differences
52

53. Legal research II - Advanced
Researching Legal
Ethics
March 29, 2012
Nathan Aaron Rosen
53