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Professional Responsibility professors often struggle to engage students in this required course—one that many students wouldn’t otherwise have chosen to take—covering material that simultaneously appears both obvious and intricately technical. This coursebook responds to these challenges with a fresh look at teaching and learning PR. Instead of containing the impenetrable cases typical of PR casebooks, which force students and teachers to sort out convoluted facts and incomplete or out-of-date analysis, this book “flips the classroom” by providing detailed explanations of the Model Rules, accompanied by problems for class discussion that require students to explore how the Rules apply in real-world situations. This structure lends itself easily to use in both in-person and online courses. The book’s explanations are focused on building statutory interpretation skills, and then bringing these skills to common practice scenarios and exploring both the legal and the practical demands they present. Discussion covers all aspects of the law governing lawyers, from professional discipline to civil liability to court sanctions, as well as informal concerns, such as misconduct’s potential effects on both client relations and the business of law practice.
New to the Second Edition:
- New or expanded discussion of recent doctrinal developments, including:
- The advent of artificial intelligence and other new technology
- Numerous authoritative interpretations of the Model Rules in recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinions and opinions from state and local bar associations
- The potential implications of the amendments to Model Rule 1.16 regarding mandatory abstention or withdrawal from engagements in which a client may misuse the lawyer’s work product in unlawful conduct
- Materials designed to make a course using the book compliant with the new features of ABA Standards 303(b) and (c), including new or expanded discussion of:
- Professional identity formation
- The stresses of law practice and lawyer well-being
- Cross-cultural competence
- Ethical issues involved in providing everyone with an equal opportunity to succeed in legal education, bar admission, and legal employment
- A statutory construction approach to the Model Rules designed to build text-interpretation skills.
- Features in the digital edition enabling students to call up with one click and review on-screen the text of a Model Rule, Comment, or other statute side-by-side with the textbook’s discussion of that text.
- A detailed Glossary of recurring terms of art, with features in the digital edition allowing students to access the Glossary definition of a term with a single click on that term.
- “Signposts” throughout alerting the student to categories of issues that commonly arise in legal ethics doctrine and practice, including Taming the Text, Rule Roles, Reason for the Rule, Consequences, Real World, Tips & Tactics, and Your House; Your Rules.
- Realistic problems, drawn from the authors’ extensive practice experience, introducing students to the world of law practice and common real-world pitfalls while applying and reinforcing doctrinal concepts.
- “Big-Picture Takeaways” at the end of each chapter reviewing and summarizing the material.
- MPRE-style multiple-choice review questions at the end of each chapter designed to prepare students for the MPRE.
- A comprehensive treatment of the law regulating lawyers, considering all of the practical hazards that lawyers face, and illustrating the connections between the Model Rules as a basis for professional discipline and the law of torts (fiduciary duty and malpractice), contracts (scope of the attorney-client relationship and engagement agreements), agency (authority), and procedure (sanctions), as well as informal concerns such as client relations and reputational issues.
- An informal, irreverent, down-to-earth, and conversational style that is meant to be accessible and relatable to Millennial and GenZ students, and to draw them into appreciating the importance of the subject matter to their own career success by encouraging them to put themselves into the “hot seats” that the problems describe.
