Everything You Wanted to Know About Legal Ethics but Were Afraid to Ask

Why Attend?

• Learn about new and looming ethics developments from Jack Marshall, a nationally acclaimed ethicist and malpractice expert.
• Earn 3.0 hours of MCLE Ethics credit.

Legal Ethics has become a frighteningly dynamic, evolving, complex area in recent years: in a real sense, these are not your father’s legal ethics rules anymore. It is particularly unsettling that crucial legal ethics problems, gray areas, and unresolved issues tend to be ignored, neglected, or shrugged away, even by specialists in the area. This is, of course, because ethics is hard, but also because making clear rules, keeping them updated as new factors come into play, and enforcing them is a never-ending process. Not being diligent in addressing these matters is tempting, but it also is irresponsible, and risks losing the public’s trust.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Legal Ethics but Were Afraid to Ask is a three-hour interactive CLE seminar that will boldly confront the most crucial and perplexing of those problems, gray areas, and unresolved issues, concentrating on Virginia practice but also expanding into the legal ethics perspective of other jurisdiction as well as the American Bar Association. The course will proceed with both lecture and interactive hypotheticals based on actual cases (though often with confounding twists).

Among those legal questions Virginia lawyers like you may have been afraid to ask but really need to think about are …

• What information do attorneys have to communicate to their client when Virginia Rule 1.4 requires them to keep clients “reasonably informed about the status of a matter,” “promptly comply with reasonable requests for information,” “explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation,” and “inform the client of facts pertinent to the matter”?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.7
• Is minimal compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct sufficient, or should exemplary ethics be the norm?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: Preamble and Scope, 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.7, 1.9, 2.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 7.1, 7.2, 8.3, 8.4
• What are the ethical implications of lawyers who represent themselves?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: Preamble and Scope, 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.7, 1.9, 2.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 7.1, 7.2, 8.3, 8.4
• What does “of counsel” mean and what are the ethical perils of claiming that status?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.4, 7.1, 8.4
• What are the ethical implications of lawyers participating in social media?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.6, 1.7, 1.18, 3.3, 5.1, 5.3, 7.1, 8.4, 8.5
• Should ethical lawyers avoid “mission lawyering” and the politicizing of the law?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.6, 1.7, 1.18, 3.3, 5.1, 5.3, 7.1, 8.4, 8.5
• How should an attorney handle a lying client’s testimony in Virginia? In other jurisdictions?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.6, 3.3, 3.4, 8.5
• What important Rules of Professional Conduct are most frequently violated and least frequently enforced?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.13, 2.1, 3.3. 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.3, 5.4, 7.1, 8.3
• When should you report another lawyer for misconduct? A judge?
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 8.3
• What legal ethics issues are being raised by artificial intelligence, and how should Virginia lawyers prepare themselves to deal with them
  Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 3.3, 3.4, 5.1, 5.3, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5; Proposed VA LEO 1902

Everything You Wanted to Know About Legal Ethics but Were Afraid to Ask is a new and original legal ethics seminar created and presented for Virginia CLE by Jack Marshall, who has been creating innovative ethics CLE programs for Virginia CLE for more than 25 years. He is the president of ProEthics, an ethics training and consulting firm based in Alexandria, Virginia. A graduate of Harvard and Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Marshall is a member of the D.C. and Massachusetts bar associations. He has taught legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the Washington College of Law at American University, and given legal ethics continuing education seminars for bar associations and law firms in 38 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, as well as many federal departments and agencies, including the IRS and the CIA.

USAID sent him to the Republic of Mongolia twice to assist in the judiciary’s conversion to a U.S.-style ethics system. In addition to legal ethics training and consulting, he has worked as a trainer and consultant for Fortune 500 companies, colleges, business schools, and associations of various professions, including actuaries, accountants, theater professionals, corporate board members, non-profits, the Catholic and Lutheran Churches, and the United Way. He also serves as an ethics expert in various litigation.

Registration Deadlines:

Cancellation Policy: Cancellation/transfer requests will be honored until 5:00 p.m. the day preceding the seminar. You will, however, be charged $60 if you cancel or transfer your registration to a different seminar after the link to the materials has been e-mailed by Virginia CLE^®.

Full refunds or transfers are available up to two days after a webcast in the unlikely event that you experience technical difficulties.

Dietary Restrictions: If you have dietary restrictions and are attending the seminar in person, please email deanna.mcglothlin@vacle.org.

MCLE Credit Caveat: The MCLE Board measures credits by the time you spend in attendance. If you enter a seminar late or leave it early, or both, you must reflect those adjustments accurately in the credits you report on your credit reporting form. A code will be given at the end of the seminar, which must be written on your MCLE form.

Private recording of this program is prohibited.

Can’t Attend?

E-mail distance_ed@vacle.org to be notified when/if this program is made available as an online or USB seminar.
E-mail publications@vacle.org to be notified when/if this program’s seminar materials are made available for sale.

Course Schedule

• Q&A will be handled via chat room for Webcast attendees.
• Q&A will be handled via e-mail for telephone seminar attendees.

About the Speaker

Jack Marshall, ProEthics, Ltd. / Alexandria

Jack Marshall is president and founder of ProEthics, a 26-year-old national ethics training firm. A Massachusetts and D.C. lawyer and professional writer and stage director, Mr. Marshall specializes in bringing the techniques of theater, comedy, and satire to the legal ethics CLE, and regularly presents jurisdiction- and practice-specific seminars to bar associations, law firms, corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies nationally and internationally.