Tom Spahn on Litigation Ethics

A pre-recorded streaming video replay of the August 2021 webcast, Tom Spahn on Litigation Ethics.

Civil litigation is full of ethical issues throughout the entire process. In this program, Tom Spahn guides you through a practical discussion of how to properly deal with these issues in the areas of communications, discovery, witnesses, and settlements. This interactive program uses hypotheticals to explore ethical topics of interest to litigators (and transactional lawyers whose clients might face litigation), including issues such as:

• Lawyers’ communications—including talking to the press about cases and criticizing judges
• Deceptive discovery tactics—including recording telephone calls, and use of admittedly deceptive tactics in public interest investigations such as housing discrimination tests, and in purely commercial investigations
• Dealing with fact witnesses—including the permissibility of paying fact witnesses for their time, and preparing them for testimony
• Claims—including “ghostwriting” pleadings, and filing knowingly time-barred claims
• Settlements—including acceptable levels of deception during settlement negotiations, silence about the law and facts, and the enforceability of settlement agreements
• Dealing with courts—including the duty to disclose unfavorable facts and law