Additional Legal Ethics Resources

ABA Center for Professional Responsibility – The CPR is the resource of first resort. It has the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other rules regulating lawyers. It is the home for ETHICSearch, a lawyer staffed place that answers legal ethics questions, many times for free. The site also has links on multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional practice. Some resources require you to be a member of the Center (e.g., members can access to all ABA formal ethics opinions, the member directory, and two quarterly publications).

CPR staff will direct lawyers to applicable ABA ethics rules; ethics opinions issued by the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and state and local bar associations; as well as to case law, law reviews and treatises. The service is available to all lawyers, regardless of ABA membership status. CPR staff try to return most inquiries within 24 hours. EthicSearch can be reached at 1-800-285-2221 (press 8) or at ETHICSearch@staff.abanet.org.

Tip: ETHICSearch, will not give you an opinion on your inquiry. They will provide ethics rulings and opinions on point, cites, and links to the full texts, where available.

Larger state bar associations, such as those in California and Florida, have ethics research staffs – similiar to ETHICSearch – that may be available to you for your inquiry regarding applicable rulings, opinions, and cites.

Charles F. Luce on Ethics is the website of a good writer and thinker on legal ethics.

ABA Standing Committee on Lawyers’ Professional Liability – Most useful information on the site: legal malpractice claims statistics and malpractice prevention information.

American Legal Ethics Library – links to most of the professional responsibility codes in the country. You can use the Listing by Jurisdiction to get right to the rules of any particular state; 18 of them (17 states plus the District of Columbia) have narratives on their professional conduct law.

Freivogel on Conflicts — Bill Freivogel single-handedly keeps a “practical online guide to conflicts of interest for lawyers with sophisticated business and litigation practices.” Best feature: the site is regularly updated with new case law.

LegalEthics.com — billing itself as “The Intersection of Ethics and the Law,” this site is maintained by Mercer Law professor David Hricik and Peter Krakaur. You can access some ethics materials by state.

Legal Ethics and Risk Management Page, maintained by Professor Hricik, has articles, links and discussions..

Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries — Summaries of Virginia and ABA Legal Ethics Opinions, free of charge, searchable by topic or keyword.

State Ethics Links – this site from David Hricik provides links to ethics opinions, rules of professional conduct, and other ethics resources from all fifty states.