Minnesota Lawyer

The fact that ethics authorities have been unable to provide a clear and comprehensive guide does not mean there are no guidelines.

Under the Rules of Professional Conduct lawyers have duties to disclose certain matters and duties not to disclose confidential information.

To recognize OLPR’s intrepretation errors, it is important to understand what Rule 4.3(d) does and does not require.

Lawyers should understand that Rule 1.1 is becoming an important ethics subject in several ways they might not expect.

There is no authoritative answer, but several factors must be considered to begin formulating an answer.

For more than 50 years, the Minnesota Supreme Court has succeeded in maintaining an excellent professional responsibility system. Public participation and accountability have been essential system components.

The Office of Lawyers Responsibility (OLPR), the Minnesota Supreme Court, and the Hennepin County District Court have recently given four answers to questions about a trial lawyer acting as a witness, three of which are wrong.

The ABA has recently issued two formal opinions on when the personal relationships of judges and lawyers raise ethics issues that may require disclosure, consent, or disqualification. The opinions are in many ways instructive and in some ways flawed.

Questions about whether your law firm has ethics policies and training are timely, and indeed urgent, because of two recent discipline cases and increasing enforcement by the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility (OLPR).

Abolition of champerty may well increase the frequency of litigation financing. Minnesota lawyers will have to be alert to several ethics issues.