Starting and maintaining a law practice is challenging but incredibly rewarding. Practitioners in smaller firms often have to be an attorney, office manager, accountant, and payroll clerk simultaneously.

This Course will examine everyday issues in ethics and professionalism and offer practical solutions to start-up and small firm practitioners. Using hypothetical situations as the basis for discussion, the speakers, who are the former First Chief Counsel and Deputy Chief Counsel to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee and current practitioners in the field of professional ethics, will review the Code of Professional Responsibility, federal and state court decisions and bar association opinions to offer insights as to how to handle various ethical situations. Among the topics to be discussed are: procedural aspects of the disciplinary system; withdrawal from a case; conflicts of interest; letters of engagement and retainers; escrow accounts and record keeping; responsibilities of partners, associates and affiliated lawyers (e.g., of counsel) in small firms; and the avoidance of disciplinary complaints and legal malpractice actions.