Ethics and Professionalism Committee (Real Property Law)

The Professionalism Committee’s goal – not surprisingly – is to encourage professionalism and ethical conduct. The Committee seeks to achieve that goal by, among other things, disseminating information with respect to ethics and professionalism (including by arranging for the circulation of opinions of interest and providing summaries of selected opinions); monitoring the case law, ethics opinions and changes in rules with respect to ethics and professionalism; fostering a dialogue between attorneys, the bench, and regulators with respect to ethics and professionalism; and presenting (or assisting other Committees in presenting) continuing legal education programs with respect to ethics and professionalism.

Over the past few years the Committee has circulated summaries of ethics opinions involving the following issues: whether a lawyer working from home must display his or her address on his/her website, whether “introducing” clients and/or non-clients is a “legal” service (which trips all the usual ethics considerations, including conflict of interest), and whether a lawyer may accept a fee from a broker for referring a client to the broker (even if the fee is credited against the client’s attorneys’ fees).

Are you moral? Are you ethical? Are they the same? Join this Committee to keep up with the most recent ethics opinions, and find out. The Committee is not a lot of work – it holds occasional telephone conferences to discuss opinions – and welcomes all who wish to participate.

Committee membership is open to members of the Real Property Law Section.