Chapter 1

Learning Objectives

In this lesson, students will:

• Define legal ethics.
• Assess the interplay between ethics and morality.
• Learn relevant ethics terminology.
• Outline the lawyer disciplinary process.

Key Terms

• ABA: The American Bar Association is a national organization of lawyers who participate in law reform, law-school accreditation, and continuing legal education for lawyers to help improve the legal system.
• Model Rules of Professional Responsibility: A set of ethical guidelines for lawyers, some of which are mandatory while others are not. Each rule has comments that help explain the rule.
• State Bar (or Bar Association): An organization of members of the legal profession that license and discipline lawyers.
• Discipline: A penalty ranging from a permanent loss of a law license to a private warning, imposed for violating the ethical rules.
• Sanctions: Serious fines or other penalties for violating the ethical rules. These usually come from a judge.
• Suspend: To temporarily remove an attorney’s right to practice law.
• Disbarment: The revocation of an attorney’s right to practice law.
• Complaint: An expression of dissatisfaction with legal services that is filed with the state bar.
• Ethics: A system of moral tenets or principles; the collective doctrines relating to the ideals of human conduct and character.
• Morality: The doctrine of right and wrong in human conduct.
• Managing partner: A managing partner for a law firm manages the operations of a law firm and delegates responsibilities to employees within the law firm, including attorneys, secretaries, firm executives, and paralegals.
• Reasonable or reasonably: When used in relation to conduct by a lawyer denotes the conduct of a reasonably prudent and competent lawyer (ABA Model Rules, Rule 1.0(a) Terminology, 2020 Edition).
• Reasonable belief or reasonably believes: When used in reference to a lawyer, it denotes that the lawyer believes the matter in question and that the circumstances are such that the belief is reasonable (ABA Model Rules, Rule 1.0(h) Terminology, 2020 Edition).
• Reasonably should know: When used in reference to a lawyer, it denotes that a lawyer of reasonable prudence and competence would ascertain the matter in question (ABA Model Rules, Rule 1.0(j) Terminology, 2020 Edition).