Professional Conduct and the Law offers a survey of ethical rules, disciplinary actions, and legal malpractice principles, plus cases, legal forms, and risk management documents for lawyers. The legal profession is experiencing an attorney misconduct problem resulting in an increase in disciplinary actions and malpractice claims being filed by injured persons. It is the overall goal of this book to increase the attorney's knowledge necessary to prevent the damage caused by unintended and purposeful ethical and legal violations, as well as to avoid the adverse consequences to the attorney for such violations. Therefore, the attorney should be able to recognize potential ethical and malpractice problems before they develop.
In this book, the author focuses on a number of misconduct issues that have resulted in complaints, as well as challenges to the integrity and values of the legal profession as a whole. Featured in this book are the following topics:
- A historical perspective of legal ethics and malpractice
- Statistical data illustrating the types of lawyer errors upon which legal malpractice claims have been based
- Lawyer competence, diligence, and effective assistance of counsel
- Legal fees and expenses
- Recurring errors of the practitioner related to settlement of cases, withdrawal from cases, researching and applying the law, and statute of limitations problems
- Office procedure-related matters concerning engagement letters, communicating with clients, and confidentiality
- Misconduct in handling matters related to property and finance, and criminal law
- Attorney sexual misconduct
- Violations stemming from alcoholism and other types of chemical dependency
- Issues involving the unauthorized practice of law
- Liability to third persons
- How the attorney can defend and prevent legal malpractice and ethical breaches
There is a high interest and increased societal emphases on the acknowledgement of unethical attorney conduct and the imposition of some type of sanction, such as suspension, disbarment or other appropriate penalty. Do not wait to have a problem before learning of your professional responsibilities. Read this book.
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