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Ethics, Satisfied Clients and Successful Representations

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Description

Ethics rules are more than mere strictures attorneys must observe. They also provide principles for successful and positive relationship with clients.

Even if the client's goal isn't fully satisfied – prevailing in litigation, closing a transaction, or something else – the relationship can still be positive. What the rules require and what clients want are often the same: Open and regular communication the status of work; a clear setting of expectations about billing; honesty about the challenges of particular matter; and a clear division of decision-making authority.

Counseling about matters they may not fully understand is essential to a successful relationship.

This program discusses how ethics rules provide principles and a foundation for successful and positive attorney-client relationships.

  • Defining the scope of an engagement and setting reasonable expectations
  • Counseling clients about an attorney's role and decision-making authority
  • Setting a standard for ongoing communication with clients
  • Candor about fees and expenses, and helping clients make good decisions
  • Dispute resolution when things go wrong

Contributors

  • Elizabeth Treubert Simon

    Elizabeth Treubert Simon is an ethics attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she advises on a wide range of ethics and compliance-related matters to support Akin Gump's offices worldwide. Previously, her practice focused on business and commercial litigation and providing counsel to clients regarding professional ethics and attorney disciplinary procedures. She is a member of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Discipline and the District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct Rules Review Committee. She is the immediate past chair of the District of Columbia Legal Ethics Committee. She writes and speaks extensively on attorney ethics issues. She received her B.A. and M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Albany Law School.

    Click here for more information about Elizabeth.

  • Thomas E. Spahn

    Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a broad complex commercial, business and securities litigation practice. He also has a substantial practice advising businesses on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. For more than 20 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written "The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner's Guide," a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation. Mr. Spahn has served as member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School

    Click here for more information about Thomas.

December 22, 2020
Tue 1:00 PM EST

Duration 1H 0M

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