Legal Ethics is easily one of the most important classes you will be required to take in law school. This class is usually one of the last classes you will have to take as well, either in your 4th or 5th year. This class is essentially a deep dive into the core ethical and legal responsibilities and obligations lawyers have. So, some of the topics you may look at are:
- professional responsibility (e.g misconduct)
- lawyer-client relationship
- what is ethics? what is legal ethics?
- sources of duties
- fiduciary duties (conflict of interest, confidentiality, disclosure, discovery and privilege)
- conduct of litigation (includes improper purpose)
- fees and financial management
The point of this class is to help you understand the (practical) responsibilities lawyers will have. And let me tell you there are a lot of things lawyers need to focus on. We have a duty towards our clients but our duty to the courts can trump that at times. We have a duty to report certain actions and behaviour, an expectation to submit documents on time, our behaviour and conduct in court during litigation and so on. There are a lot of important things to remember and learn about in this class.
My advice would be to pay specific attention to your statutory obligations. A good amount of our obligations are included in statutory law so this is going to be one of those classes where you need to focus a lot on statutory law.
Overall, this is a class that helps you a lot when you actually work as a lawyer. A lot of law classes focus on the legal theory behind the law, we don't have a lot of classes where we focus on how to behave as an actual lawyer when we leave university and start working in a firm. So, this is one of those classes where we get to focus on 'being a lawyer'.
That's it for my (short) guide to Legal Ethics. I hope this summary gives you an idea of what to expect when you take this class. So, thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day.
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