All legal professionals, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, are expected to maintain strict ethical
standards – for the protection of colleagues, clients, the court, and anyone even tangentially
affected by a case. The ethical rules guide lawyers in all aspects of their representation of clients.
They are integral to every facet of the law and its practice –As a paralegal you are not permitted
to practice law, or are you permitted to give legal advice. However, Paralegals are bound by the
same ethical rules as an Attorney.
The rules of professional responsibility serve as a roadmap to follow in many common scenarios.
Familiarity with the ethical rules will help lawyers and Paralegals face what are sometimes
awkward challenges and choices. Duty of confidentiality is one of the profession's "core values."
“Confidentiality” is a broad term that comprises several legal doctrines related to a lawyer’s duty
not to reveal secrets, including the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, the
spousal privilege, the psychiatrist-patient privilege, and the priest-penitent privilege.
A privilege is meant to encourage a client who needs legal advice to tell the lawyer the truth.
Without knowledge of the truth, a lawyer will be less able to help the client. The attorney-client
privilege protects against the required disclosure of any confidential information given by a
client to his attorney during seeking professional legal advice.
The work product doctrine is another limitation on discoverable material. It includes the
thoughts and mental impressions of the lawyer, memorialized in notes and other documents and
crafted in anticipation of litigation that are not discoverable by an adversary.
Physicians and psychotherapists/social workers may not disclose information obtained from
patients regarding their medical or psychiatric treatment, nor may a priest disclose information
obtained by a penitent. Spouses are not required to disclose confidential marital communications,
and one spouse may prevent the other spouse from doing so detrimentally affect the quality of
the representation.
Lawyers must also refrain from establishing relationships where a potential conflict of interest
will detrimentally affect the quality of the representation. Conflicts of interest may have negative
effects on a lawyer’s ability to exercise independent and professional judgment. Although
conflicts of interest are addressed in the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional
Conduct, the phrase itself is not defined. Various modifiers are used in the proscriptions against
lawyers with conflicts of interest representing various categories of clients. So, for instance, Rule
1.7, which addresses conflicts of interest involving current clients, proscribes lawyers from
representing a client if such work involves a concurrent conflict of interest — although the rule
includes an exception allowing a lawyer with a conflict of interest to represent a client provided
certain prerequisites are met.
Model Rule 1.8 then gets into a bit more detail about what is not allowed, and exceptions
specifying what is. Another rule (1.9) addresses conflicts involving former clients. Then there’s
imputation of conflicts of interest, addressed in Rule 1.10, prohibiting all lawyers in a firm from
“knowingly” representing a client if a single one of them would be prohibited by the conflicts
rules from representing the client — with more enumerated exceptions that actually allow
representation even where there is an imputation of a conflict of interest.
Then there are special conflicts of interest, identified in Rule 1.11, addressing scenarios
involving current and former government employees. Rule 1.12 addresses situations involving
former judges and current law clerks and what they can do and what they cannot as far as clients
and matters in which the former judges were, or current law clerks are involved. Rule 1.13
concerns lawyers representing organizations as clients. Obligations to prospective clients are
addressed in Rule 1.18. Conflicts of interest do indeed quickly become confusing, especially
when a lawyer considers that the model rules are just that — models.
A lawyer, of course, should look to professional conduct statutes and rules and ethics opinions
and case law in jurisdictions in which he is admitted to practice to determine what exactly
conflicts of interest are and what is — and is not — allowed. A Lawyer and Paralegal should
always look in Rules and regulations and do research.
Legal research is one of the basic activities in the practice of the law, and the one probably most
undervalued by the lay public. While lawyers on television are shown grandstanding in court
rooms or meeting clients in offices, the reality of the law is that it is predicated not on
performance and oration, but on research and study. Legal research is the core of any legal
action, as nearly all laws and legal actions are based on the construction of legal arguments, and
legal arguments are constructed by the support gained through research. All legal research is
drawn from three kinds of resources: primary, secondary, and evidential. Primary resources
generally refer to the rule of law, or letter of the law, or in simplest terms, laws as they are
written. Secondary resources are anything for which supports legal research other than the
specific words of the law, and as a result it can be a very broad category. Evidential refers to
the physical, material, or testimonial elements that become part of a case and subsequently part
of a legal argument; in simple terms, evidence.
Legal writing involves the analysis of fact patterns and presentation of arguments in documents
such as legal memoranda and briefs. One form of legal writing involves drafting a balanced
analysis of a legal problem or issue. Another form of legal writing is persuasive, and advocates in
favor of a legal position. Another form legal writing involves drafting legal documents, such as
contracts and wills.
