At last week’s Board of Directors meeting, we reviewed and accepted the Legal Ethics Committee’s recommended comments on two alternative proposed versions of Rule of Professional Conduct 1.2.1. This rule prohibits a lawyer from advising or assisting the violation of law, including criminal conduct, fraudulent conduct, and a violation of any law, rule, or ruling of a tribunal. The Legal Ethics Committee’s analysis and comments will be submitted to the State Bar of California’s Board of Trustees’ Regulation and Discipline Committee on behalf of the SDCBA.
As a reminder, our Legal Ethics Committee staffs a hotline as a service to SDCBA attorney members. If you have an ethics issue, you can call the hotline at 619.231.0781 x 4145 and leave a message, and someone from the committee will respond. You can also receive additional ethics guidance through the committee’s articles, publications, and opinions, which can be found at www.sdcba.org/legalethics. Thank you to our Legal Ethics Committee for all of your hard work in addressing so many important issues in our profession.
One of most fundamental ethical rules is that lawyers must be competent in the provision of legal services. It is the very first substantive rule in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (Model Rules) and the very first rule in the new California Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 1.1) that become effective on November 1, 2018.
Look out on social media and in SDCBA emails for "BarBytes," weekly tech tips from the SDCBA's new Member Technology Officer, Adriana Linares. Need tech advice, or have a tech-related question? Email Adriana at mto@sdcba.org.
