Practice Management and the New York Rules of Professional Conduct

Find out how the new rules affect your practice

2.0 TOTAL MCLE ETHICS CREDITS

On April 1, 2009, the New York Rules of Professional Conduct will replace 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 newly 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.

Program Faculty

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

Sponsored by the Law Practice Management Committee and the Committee on Continuing Legal Education of the New York State Bar Association

Recorded Tuesday, February 24, 2009