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The Ethics of Bad Facts and Bad Law (Live Replay from June 23, 2020)

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Description

Every representation involves "bad" facts and/or "bad" law – facts and law that run counter to a client's objectives. Ethical tensions and issues arise when a lawyer has to disclose bad facts or law to a court or administrative panel, or even to an adversary.

At what point does the lawyer's duty as a member of the bar and officer of the court require disclosure even when it is adverse to a client's interest whom the lawyer must zealously represent? What are the limits to how a lawyer may represent an adverse fact or adverse law, even unpublished law, to an adversary? Answering these difficulty questions may not only impact the outcome of a representation but potentially expose ethical sanction.

This program provides a practical guide to the ethical issues surrounding bad facts and bad law in client representations.

  • Lawyer ethical duties to disclose bad facts and bad law
  • Ethical issues surrounding the representation of adverse facts to tribunals and adversaries
  • Duties to disclose adverse legal precedent to courts and administrative panels
  • When is a lawyer required to disclose bad fact or law versus when they may disclose?
  • Timing issues – at what stage should adverse facts and law be disclosed?
  • Related issues of confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege
  • Ex parte communications with the courts – what's ethically permissible, what's not?

Contributors

  • 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.

September 30, 2020
Wed 1:00 PM EDT

Duration 1H 0M

This live web event has ended.

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