Legal Ethics Falls Apart

Abstract

In recent decades, the law governing lawyers has begun to fragment. A host of new regulators, mainly federal, has entered an area formerly reserved to state supreme courts and the organized bar. Their regulations typically restrain the freedom of lawyers to pursue their clients' interests, protecting instead the interests of the government or of opposing parties. Often, the new measures are highly detailed, and regulate only certain specialized kinds of legal services, though at the same time they may cover nonlawyers providing similar services. The new regulations supplement and change previously applicable rules such as those found in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, sometimes by providing more stringent sanctions, and sometimes in other ways. This article describes and analyzes these developments.