Legal Ethics, Technology

Crafting Legal Ethics Rules For The 21st Century

How can the profession’s rules of conduct keep pace with the rapidly evolving technological landscape?

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By now, most lawyers are aware that their own failure to keep pace with technology could be an ethical lapse. But are the profession’s ethical rules themselves keeping up with the rapidly evolving technological landscape?

Anecdotally, at least, there is a significant disconnect between the rules of professional conduct and the day-to-day reality of practicing lawyers. There is an apparent sea change happening in the world of legal ethics as attorneys confront previously uncontemplated ethical issues. Can you reference facts about a case when responding to a negative or false online review? Is it ethical for a lawyer to Facebook “friend” a judge before whom she appears? Can you allow your firm’s web consultant to view the names of your potential clients through your website contact form?

If the rules of professional conduct are to have meaningful impact, the profession needs increased clarity around these and countless other novel dilemmas. Above the Law and the Data-Driven Ethics Initiative are partnering on an unprecedented research effort to explore attorney perceptions of the rules of professional conduct, particularly as they intersect with emerging digital technologies. Our ultimate goal is to create an open source legal ethics resource. We hope this resource will serve to deliver actionable intelligence to the legal community by synthesizing data from actual practicing lawyers.

We want to hear from you. Please take our short 5-8 minute survey and share your insight and opinion. (Of course, please be assured that your responses are anonymized and that we will hold all survey data in the strictest confidence.)

Please find our brief survey here. Thanks!

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