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Welcome to Legal Ethics

This course looks at the regulation of the legal profession; the lawyer-client relationship, from formation to termination; how to deal with conflicts of interest; and the rules relating to withholding and disclosing confidential information.

Transcript

Welcome to Legal Ethics! Designed for upper-level law students, this course features 29 video lessons and 245 practice questions. It surveys the rules of professional responsibility that govern every attorney’s conduct. 

Chapter one covers several crucial topics, including: admission to the legal profession, the courts’ power to regulate lawyers, the obligation to report misconduct, the unauthorized practice of law, supervising subordinate lawyers, and disciplinary actions. 

Chapter two explores the lawyer-client relationship. Here, you’ll learn how the relationship arises, how it terminates, the attorney’s role, the allocation of authority between lawyer and client, the ethical constraints on attorneys’ fees, and the obligation to communicate with the client about the case. 

Chapter three explains the rules that apply in litigation. Topics include: the obligation to bring only meritorious claims; the duties of candor, impartiality, and zealous advocacy; how to work with opposing counsel; the duty to expedite litigation; and what happens when an attorney working on a matter is called to testify in that matter.

Chapter four surveys conflicts of interest. Here, you’ll learn what these are and how to avoid them in the contexts of concurrent representation; personal interests; current, prospective, and former clients; and business deals with clients. 

Finally, in chapter 5, you’ll study the duty of confidentiality—when and to what extent you can reveal information about a case you are handling, have handled, or may handle. This chapter also covers the attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine. If you watch all our lesson videos and take all our quizzes and exams, you’ll be positioned to do very well on your ethics exam. Let’s get started.