Outline Syllabus and Policies - Introduction to the U.S. Legal Profession Fall 2023
Professor George W. Conk
Senior Fellow, Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, Fordham Law School
Wednesdays 6:00 - 8:50 PM Eastern
Classroom 4-02
Final exam: Tuesday, December 12, 5:30 - 7:30 PM
Exam Room 3-04
Open Laptop and Network
Answer key Casebook Ch. 2, 3, 4, 5
Week 1: Introducing Professionalism and Legal Ethics
The Structure of Professional Responsibility
Licensing, disciplinary, civil, and criminal liability
For our first class:
Peruse: ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct- ABA [Rules only – NOT Comments]
Note particularly these ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct:
RPC 1.16 Declining or Terminating Representation April 4, 2020
ABA Model RPC 1.16 AMENDED August 2023
RPC 3.1. Meritorious Claims and Contentions
RPC 3.8 Special Responsibilities of Prosecutors
RPC 8.4 Misconduct.
SLIDES - Ch. 1 - Intro to U.S. Legal Profession
SLIDES - `The January 6 Indictments'
U.S. democracy and rule of law in crisis
We meet at a time of crisis of democracy. Almost eighty years ago the world was smoldering from the catastrophe of a second world war. Europe, Japan, and much of east Asia were in ruins. The United Nations Organization and a series of international treaties and agreements brought a precarious and punctuated peace and an end to colonialism.
Today, while confronted by climate and migration crises the United States is still struggling with the legacy of the African slave trade and chattel slavery and the century of apartheid which followed. Despite the post civil war constitutional Amendments XIII, XIV,, and XV statutory legal segregation ended only with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A backlash against the first African American President took the form of a nativist populism.
Now the most prominent figure in that movement - Donald J. Trump faces multiple indictments. The most serious charge is conspiracy to defraud the United States and undermine the results of the Presidential election of 2020. In the key indictment Special Prosecutor Smith described six co-conspirators. Each is a lawyer who is alleged to have acted with Trump to obstruct the lawful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election. In the Justice Department indictment the lawyers are described (anonymously) as unindicted co-conspirators.
Now Atlanta Georgia state Prosecutor Fanni Willis has filed a broader indictment which charges Trump and several of the lawyers with attempting to interfere unlawfully with the presidential election in Georgia.
But those same six lawyers have been charged by the Georgia state prosecutor for a wide range of election interference. They are Rudolph Giuliani, John Charles Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey B. Clark, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Katherine Powell.
Those lawyers faced a range of consequences:
Former Acting Assistant Attorney General
Jeffrey B. Clark is also facing disciplinary charges brought by the Board of Professional Responsibility of the District of Columbia.
Personal counsel to the President attorney and former law school Dean John Eastman is also charged with misconduct by the California State Bar regarding challenges to 2020 Presidential election.
Rudy Giuliani, personal counsel to Donald Trump has been suspended from the practice of law by New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, charged with professional misconduct in the District of Columbia, indicted in Georgia, and found civilly liable for defamation of two Georgia Election workers.
Kenneth Chesebro, assertedly a key strategist of a specious legal theory, has sought a separate trial. The next months will be filled with efforts of the four times indicted former President and his allies to delay and defeat the prosecutions.
Week 2 The Basic Elements of Law Practice - part 1
The Structure of the Profession
SLIDES updated 9/24/23
Read
ABA Model RPC 5.5(a) Unauthorized Practice of Law
Read
Casebook Jefferson, Pearce, et alii, Pages 50-81
Questions 2-1 to 2-7
Review:
New Jersey Model Criminal Jury Charge: Unauthorized Practice of Law NJS 2C:21-22
Arizona Supreme Court Task Force Report Access to Legal Services Read Executive Summary Re Legal Websites and referral services
NJ Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics and Unauthorized practice of Law Committee Joint Opinion 732
Week 3 Basic Elements, continued
Read Casebook Pages 81-116
Questions 2-8 to 2-16
SLIDES Ch. 2 - part 3 Duty to accept or reject Certain Cases, Ending Attorney Client Relationship, Competence, Civil Liability
Read pages 126-133
SLIDES - Ch.2 part 4 Allocation of Authority
For October 4, 2023
SLIDES - Advertising and marketing updated 10/11/23
Read: casebook, pages 172-202
Discussion Questions 3-1 to 3-5
For October 11, 2023
Finish marketing: Trade Names
Read textbook pages 205-210; 228-239
SLIDES - Reasonable fees, etc.
Discussion Questions 3-6 to 3-15
Weeks 6 & 7
conclude Ch, 3 - start with Q. 3-34
SLIDES Legal Malpractice - Civil Liability
SLIDES Lawyers Professional Liability Insurance
Chapter 4 Attorney-client privilege and the Duty of
Confidentiality
SLIDES - part 1 - attorney client privilege
Who `owns’ the privilege, the work-product privilege, the
`crime-fraud’ exception
Eastman docs to January 6 Committee
Read pages 231-269
Questions 4-1 through 4-5
Week 7 Continue Chapter 4
Waiver of Attorney Client Privilege
Start at Q 4-2, Ch 4. Slide 17
Read: pages 270-285
Wednesday, November 1
Order of Judge McAfee affirming admissibility of certain documents despite assertion of work product and attorney client privilege in Georgia v. Trump
SLIDES - Ch. 4 Attorney client privilege and duty of confidentiality, part 2 Questions 4-6 to 4-16 UPDATED 11/1/2023 2:30 PM
START
– GWC 11/13/2023
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
begin at slide 84 Conflicts, part 1
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