Ethics-Governance: Article: http://www.wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/archives/2000/sep-00-ethics.htm

Ethics & Governance - Resources and Articles

Articles indexes: a \| b \| c \| d \| e \| f \| g \| h \| i \| j \| k \| l \| m \| n \| o \| p \| q \| r \| s \| t \| u \| v \| w \| x \| y \| z \| other

Article - Abstract. To view full article click on the article title.
http://www.wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/archives/2000/sep-00-ethics.htm Ethics and the Law Big Brother is Watching: Discipline for "Private" Conduct by Barrie Althoff, WSBA Chief Disciplinary Counsel. Opinions expressed herein are the author's and are not official or unofficial WSBA positions. This article looks at whether a lawyer should be subject to professional discipline for conduct that arguably is "private" conduct unrelated to the practice of law. It does so by first looking at the philosophical and cultural heritage underlying a possible distinction between private and public conduct. It then looks at how the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct treat private and public conduct. It then looks at how one state, Washington, has sanctioned lawyers for arguably private conduct. Finally, it draws some conclusions and gives one possible answer to the question: "Should lawyers be subject to discipline for 'private' conduct?" Rummaging in the Past The question of whether a lawyer's "private" conduct should subject the lawyer to discipline assumes that a lawyer's conduct should analytically be divided into mutually exclusive categories of "public" and "private" conduct. For this article, "private" conduct means a lawyer's conduct not involving the lawyer acting as a lawyer when engaged in the conduct. Classifying conduct as public or private may merely manifest the classifier's conclusion that the conduct should or should not be subject to public sanction. Since most human conduct has some direct or indirect effect on others, a classification must flexibly reflect changing evaluations of conduct in different cultures and at different times. Full Article: http://www.wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/archives/2000/sep-00-ethics.htm


2006 Ethics-Governance.com