Practice Management and the New Rules of Professional Conduct

2.0 MCLE Credits in Ethics

Presented by the Committee on Law Practice Management and the General Practice Section

Professor Gary Munneke (Moderator)
Pace University School of Law
—White Plains

Marian Rice, Esq.
L'Abbate Balkan Colavita & Contini, L.L.P
—Garden City

Thomas O. Rice, Esq.
Albanese & Albanese LLP
—Garden City

On April 1, 2009 the New Rules of Professional Conduct replaced the existing Disciplinary Rules. In addition to adoption of ABA Model Rules Format, the new rules bring changes that affect the manner in which you manage your law firm or practice on your own. Learn the overall format of the recently enacted Rules and how the Rules:

• Significantly change the manner in which a conflict of interest should be analyzed and resolved;
• Alter the existing rules on the relationship between attorney and client and the allocation of authority in the attorney client relationship;
• Impact upon the current letters of engagement rules and the circumstances under which attorneys may agree to a division of fees;
• Set forth the attorney's responsibilities and duties to prospective clients who have not engaged the attorney;
• Affect the current definitions of attorney-client communications;
• Delineate the role of an attorney when dealing with a client of diminished capacity;
• Permit, under certain circumstances,evaluations to one other than the client;
• Define the role of the lawyer as a third party neutral;
• Specify an attorney's obligations before a tribunal;
• Expand an attorney's obligation in speaking with unrepresented parties;
• Include direction on the inadvertent receipt of documents and respect for the rights of third persons; and
• Set forth aspirational goals for pro bono service.

Recorded June 10, 2009