IngentaConnect Ethical Infrastructures and De Facto Ethical Norms at Work in Lar...

Author: Kirkland, Kimberly

Source: Legal Ethics, Volume 11, Number 2, September 2008 , pp. 181-200(20)

Abstract:

This paper reports on a qualitative empirical study exploring the evolving role of ethics counsel in large law firms in the United States. On the basis of extensive interviews with lawyers formally charged with responsibility for institutional ethics in their large law firms, the study asked what ethical issues ethics counsel attempt to address and how they attempt to address those issues. The paper examines ethics counsels' conceptions of their roles and the assumptions and beliefs that frame their decision-making. The paper reports the study's findings that currently ethics counsel and the ethical infrastructures they design and implement are primarily focused on the norms that govern lawyers' loyalty to their clients and the ethics rules designed to protect a client from lawyers and firms with conflicting interests. In contrast, most ethics counsel spend relatively little time in their formal role as ethics counsel addressing norms relating to a lawyer's independence from his client.

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Ethical Infrastructures and De Facto Ethical Norms at Work in Large US Law Firms: The Role of Ethics Counsel