LAW 690 - Professional Responsibility

Course Type: Required Second Year Course
Credits: 3

Prerequisites: 2L class standing.
Description: A consideration of the sources and implications of the moral behavior of lawyers, and of the consequences of immoral behavior by lawyers, including professional discipline and the imposition of damages for legal malpractice. The course considers the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility of the American Bar Association. It includes instruction on the values and responsibilities of the legal profession and its members, specifically, the importance of cross-cultural competency and the obligation of lawyers to promote a justice system that provides equal access and eliminates bias, discrimination, and racism in the law. Additional topics may include earlier American compilations on professional ethics; proposals for reform; current sources on the law of legal malpractice and legal-malpractice prevention; and non-legal sources on ethics, including biography, fiction, history, philosophy, and moral theology.