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Contact: Mark Mahoney
Associate Director of Media Services
518-487-5532
mmahoney@nysba.org
January 11, 2012
NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION CREATES FREE APP
PROVIDING ACCESS TO ETHICS OPINIONS
The New York State Bar Association has brought legal ethics research
into the 21st Century, announcing the release of its Mobile Ethics App
that allows judges, lawyers and law students to access instant ethics
advice from their smartphones.
The State Bar has taken its catalog of more than 900 legal ethics
opinions, dating back to 1964, and made them available on an app for
iPhones, Android phones and BlackBerrys, as well as iPads, through their
respective app marketplaces.
“Ethics questions can arise in many different contexts. The NYSBA
Mobile Ethics App will allow judges, lawyers and others to access the
opinions of the Association’s Professional Ethics Committee on the
spot from the convenience of their mobile devices,” said
Association President Vincent E. Doyle III of Buffalo (Connors &
Vilardo). “The State Bar is pleased to provide this service to its
members and the legal community.”
The NYSBA Mobile Ethics App is the latest in the Association’s
continuing efforts to make information available in the most current
technological formats. In 2011, the Association launched its eLAP
website, a secure means of accessing lawyer assistance information and
services over the Internet; enhanced its website search capabilities
through a new engine powered by Recommind; and offered its members
discount subscriptions to Clio, a cloud-based practice management system
designed especially for solo practitioners and smaller law firms.
The Association’s newest offering, the NYSBA Mobile Ethics App, is
searchable by keyword, category or opinion number. Search results
display a summary of each issue and a link to the text of the opinions.
Following the initial download, the NYSBA Mobile Ethics App is available
whether or not users are connected to the Internet. The app is free and
available to everyone. Users will be notified through the app when new
ethics opinions are issued.
Ethics opinions are issued by the State Bar’s Committee on
Professional Ethics. They were decided under the Canons of Professional
Ethics, the Code of Professional Responsibility or the Rules of
Professional Conduct, depending on when the opinion was issued. The
opinions themselves contain specific references to sections of ethics
code or law from which they were derived if users want to do further
research offline.
The NYSBA Mobile Ethics App can be downloaded to iPhones through the App
Store, to Android phones through the Android Market, and to BlackBerrys
through BlackBerry App World. Search “NYSBA” for BlackBerrys
and Androids, and “New York State Bar Association Mobile Ethics
App” for iPhones. The app also can be accessed by visiting the
NYSBA website at www.nysba.org/ethicsapp. To
access the ethics opinions via the Internet, visit www.nysba.org/ethics.
The 77,000-member New York State Bar Association is the largest
voluntary bar association in the nation. It was founded in 1876.
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