Last week, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado sanctioned two attorneys for their filing in an election dispute lawsuit, citing "a woeful lack of investigation into the law" and "patently frivolous arguments." The judge's order directed the attorneys to pay opposing counsels' fees for filing motions in the suit. Other attorneys who filed challenges to the 2020 election results have experienced similar professional consequences: Rudolph Giuliani currently faces a D.C. bar ethics investigation, following the June suspension of his law license in New York, and earlier this summer former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood weathered a high-profile hearing over potential sanctions in Michigan.
These cases have been a very public reminder of the importance of attorneys keeping up to date with their ethical duties and obligations. Every day, lawyers across the country face sanctions or other disciplinary action for failures to uphold the rules of their respective state bars – while most incidents may not be as sensational as the examples above, smaller-scale ethical infractions can still have major consequences for attorneys, including suspensions and permanent disbarment from practice.
The Goodson Law Library recently updated its research guide to Legal Ethics, which can help navigate the unique research universe of primary and secondary resources related to professional responsibility in the law, including model and enacted codes, ethics opinions, and helpful treatises. Some highlighted resources include:
- The Law of Lawyering, full-text online in Fastcase & Cheetah Litigation Library: this treatise covers professional responsibility topics in extensive detail.
- ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct (online in Bloomberg Law: Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Practice Center) includes recent legal ethics news stories, the full text of ABA ethics opinions as well as a digest of state ethics opinions, and links to additional ethics resources by state. The site also provides the full text of the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct as well as a link to the ABA's comparison chart between the ABA Model Rules and the adopted rules of each jurisdiction.
- Individual jurisdiction codes and ethics opinions can often be found freely on the web, and also in the commercial legal research services available in the Law School.
- On Westlaw, ethics opinions can be found by using the path Administrative Decisions & Guidance > Ethics & Disciplinary Opinions. ABA rules are available at Secondary Sources > By Topic > Ethics & Professional Responsibility. State bar rules are included in the Statutes & Court Rules databases for the jurisdiction, generally at the end of the court rules for that state.
- On Lexis, follow the path Practice Area > Legal Ethics to view available sources.
- On Bloomberg, visit the Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Practice center to view available sources.
For help with accessing resources described in the guide, or for additional sources related to legal ethics, be sure to Ask a Librarian.