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![handle is hein.barjournals/breport0017 and id is 1 raw text is: Vol. 17/No. 1
August/September 1988
Bar Reor t
The Official Newspaper of the District of Columbia Bar
New ethics code proposed;
Court sets comment period
AN ATTENTIVE AUDIENCE of D.C. Bar members and guests listens to the inaugural
address of incoming D.C. Bar President Philip A. Lacovara at the D.C. Bar's 1988 An-
nual Meeting Assembly. The Annual Meeting was the most successful ever, having
attracted a record 900 members and guests for Luncheon as well as standing-room-
only attendance at many of the 32 seminars. (Jim Hubbard photo).
The D.C. Court of Appeals has released
for public comment a revised ethics code
governing the practice of law in the District
of Columbia.
The document, which is the result of over
three years of work by a D.C. Bar Commit-
tee and nearly two years of review by the
Court's judges, is reproduced in full in this
edition of Bar Report. Additional copies are
available from the Bar's Publications Office.
The court worked very hard in many
sessions and has extraordinary respect for
the Committee and the Board of Governors'
work product as evidenced by the relatively
few changes that were made, declared
Judge John M. Ferren, who chaired the
Court committee that examined the proposal.
Serving with Ferren were Judges James A.
Belson and Theodore R. Newman, Jr.
The court has exercised its prerogative
D.C Bar's 1988 annual meeting most successful ever;
record crowds attend luncheon, sbminar programs
The D.C. Bar's 1988 Annual Meeting was
the most successful on record, with over
2,000 Bar members attending part or all of
the day-long event.
Beginning with continental breakfast, law-
yers from across the metropolitan area
flocked to the Capital Hilton Hotel to attend
seminars, talk with legal services vendors,
and ask questions concerning Bar programs.
An estimated 900 atterided the luncheon,
featuring keynote speaker Louis F. Ober-
dorfer of the U.S. District Court for the Dis-
trict of Columbia. Oberdorfer called on the
organized Bar and its individual members
to do something to alleviate crowding in the
District of Columbia's prisons. [The full text
of Oberdorfer's speech as well as a response
from D.C. Corporation Counsel Frederick
D. Cooke, Jr. appears on pages 6-8.]
At the assembly program, outgoing D.C.
Bar President Robert E. Jordan concluded
his term by thanking his predecessors for
laying a firm foundation on which to build
and urging the membership to participate in
the programs the Bar will undertake in the
year ahead.
I do not plan any major breaks from the
past,' said incoming D.C. Bar President
Philip A. Lacovara after Jordan turned over
the gavel. We have the same vision of what
the D.C. Bar should be.
In his remarks, Lacovara reviewed the
Bar's purposes and pledged to continue and
expand programs launched by his
predecessors.
Our Bar has five purposes articulated in
the Rules of the D.C. Court of Appeals: to
aid the court in improving the administra-
tion of justice; to promote lawyers' high
ideals of integrity, learning, public service,
and standards of conduct; to safeguard
proper professional interests of Bar mem-
bers; to promote the formation and activi-
ties of voluntary bar associations; and to
provide forums for discussion of subjects
concerning the practice of law and continu-
ing legal education, he said.
Also during the assembly, outstanding Bar
members and programs were recognized
(see story on winners on page 5) and newly-
elected officers, Board of Governors mem-
bers, and representatives to the American
Bar Association House of Delegates were
installed.
Again this year, the members attending
seminars packed the hotel's meeting rooms
from morning into the evening. Among the
successful programs were: Computer Law
Developments, Meeting the Childcare needs
of Employees, Anatomy of a Trade Bill, The
ABCs of Patent, Trademark and Copyright
Protection, Recent Developments in Insur-
ance Bad Faith Litigation, Forfeiture of At-
torneys' Fees, Nursing Home Law, Getting
and Keeping Good Clients, and Minority
Ownership of Broadcast Stations.
Non-Proft Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
washington, D.C.
Peralt No. 8655
to make initial choices on important policy
issues, but I am pleased that it has modified
only a small number of the recommenda-
tions made by the Bar's Board of Gover-
nors, observed Robert E. Jodan m, im-
mediate past president of the D.C. Bar and
chair of the Bar's Model Rules of Profes-
sional Conduct Committee.
Jordan identified 10 major issues in the
proposal: half of his selections involve sig-
nificant Court modifications of the Bar's
proposal and half are major changes from
current rules which were unchanged by the
Court.
Court modifications of Bar proposals are:
Rule 1.2, concerning the relative role of cli-
ent and lawyer; Rule 3.2, concerning the
duty of a lawyer to expedite litigation; Rule
3.3, concerning conduct of a lawyer repre-
senting a criminal defendant who intends to
commit perjury; Rule 3.8, concerning the
judicial review of efforts to obtain Grand
Jury testimony from lawyers about client
matters; and Rule 9.1, a new rule prohibit-
ing discrimination by members of the D.C.
Bar.
Major revisions from existing ethics rules
in the Bar proposal which were not altered
by the Court are: Rule 1.5, requiring that
fee agreements be in writing; Rule 3.6, es-
tablishing a policy with respect to pretrial
publicity; Rule 3.7, regarding lawyers ap-
pearing as witnesses; Rule 4.2, concerning
procedures applicable to lawyers contacting
employees of adversaries; and Rule 5.4 con-
cerning nonlawyers holding partnership sta-
tus in law firms.
Although the Court has set no timetable
for the proposal's future after the conclusion
of comment period, Judge Ferren expressed
the hope that the court would have no sur-
prises during next three months.
We have had the benefit of comments
that came into Bar itself [during the com-
mittee draft process] but you never know
what will surface. New ideas and concerns
come up, and obviously you want to pay
close attention to every one.
D.C Bar member wins ABAprobono prize
D.C. Bar member Seth P. Waxman, a
partner at the law firm of Miller, Cassidy,
Larroca & Lewin, has received the Ameri-
can Bar Association's Pro Bono Publico
Award for his volunteer representation of in-
dividuals appealing their death sentences and
for his recruitment and training of others to
assist in those efforts.
The award is presented annually by the
ABA's Standing Committee on Lawyers'
Public Service Responsibility to recognize
public service contributions of private
attorneys.
Waxman, who was honored along with
three other recipients at a luncheon during
the ABA Convention in Toronto early in Au-
gust, was instrumental in organizing an esti-
mated 25 attorney volunteers in the District
of Columbia area to represent convicted
clients in appealing their death penalty
sentences.
Waxman also was instrumental in con-
vincing the ABA, through its Individual
Rights and Responsibilities Section, to create
a post-conviction death penalty representa-
tion project to recruit and train lawyers na-
tionwide to represent death row inmates. As
a result, over 1,200 lawyers have responded
to the program.
Waxman, who was nominated for the
prize by the D.C. Bar's Public Service
Activities Committee, also prepared the
amicus brief for the Congressional Black
Caucus in the case of McClesky v. Kemp,
in which it was argued that statistical studies
indicated the race of the defendant was the
most substantial predictor of whether the
defendant received the death penalty.
ai m P. WAXMAN
Community Education
Project wins volunteerism
honors page 3
Outstanding Bar merrmbers
honored at Annual
Meeting page 5
Judge Oberdorfer calls
Bar to activism for
prisoners pages 6-8
Disciplinary staff assists
Bar in maintaining
professionalism page 12](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.barjournals/breport0017&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)