![handle is hein.journals/proflw6 and id is 1 raw text is: Ru EII LAW
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Professional Discipline of Law Firms
The Emperor Needs New Clothes
Anthony E. Davis
The Disciplinary Rules should set forth and
enforce standards for law firm conduct
which will minimize the chances that
lawyers practicing in firms will violate the
Disciplinary Rules. More emphasis on law
firm (as distinct from individual lawyer)
responsibility in the Disciplinary Rules should also
help firms avoid exposure to
legal liability for conduct which
could have been avoided. Both
specific standards of conduct There is a sign
for law firms and procedures of the bar th
for disciplining law firms, to all change
therefore, should be integrated
into the Disciplinary Rules andethics
the statutes providing for the
enforcement of those rules.
This quotation, perhaps surpris-
ingly, is taken from the opening paragraphs of the
report of a bar association committee (of which this
author is a member) calling for the adoption of spe-
cific additions to the ethics codes to effect the
changes described in this introductory material. 1
Probably the only statement on this subject with
which every reader of this article will agree is that it
is an emotive one. There is a significant segment of
the bar that is resistant to all
changes in the states' ethics codes
on the grounds that there are
enough minefields encountered by
lawyers in their everyday practice
- malpractice cases, federal and state court sanc-
tions rules, regulatory agency enforcers - without
the expansion of the scope for professional disci-
pline. And many of those whose ox may be gored
by the changes advocated here are likely to add
powerful voices on that side of the debate.
Nevertheless, there are cogent arguments that the
time has come for the adoption of changes to the
ethics codes to enlarge their
application in order to provide for
i[]cant segment the discipline of law firms as well
as individual lawyers. At the
at is resistant least, these arguments compel
S in the states' serious consideration of the sub-
codes. ject. By its compass, this article
cannot be discursive; instead, its
purpose will be to outline the
scope of the changes to the ethics
codes needed to establish a meaningful system for
disciplining firms, and the principal arguments
favoring the adoption of these changes.
The most fundamental issue which must be
addressed at the outset of any debate on the expan-
sion of the ethics codes is the role which they are
intended to serve. There are two extreme positions
which may be asserted. On the one hand is the argu-
ment that, like any legislation whose fundamental
purpose is penal (or analogous in its enforcement to
penal legislation), the codes should be specific in
every instance where they seek to establish a basis
for discipline. On the other hand, the argument is
Continued on page 4
November 1094
Volume 6
Iouo Mumber 1
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