Notes on the Teaching of Ethics in Law School

The word "ethics" is a particularly amorphous concept in the context of legal training. I t is critical to spell out the several distinct meanings of legal ethics: First, there are professional rules of protocol (Ethics I): a client's funds must be kept in a special escrow account separate from the attorney's funds;l a lawyer only contacts the adverse party through his of her own lawyer;' a lawyer can advertise services only in certain prescribed ways.3 These are relatively easy to communicate and easy to grasp. A second form of ethics is the more "open texture" rules (Ethics 11) which require analysis of cases and formal ethical opinions of bar association committees to establish relevant principles and appropriate modes of conduct. These are accessible to treatment typical of the best law school classroom work in substantive law courses. For example, the proscription in Canon Five4 against conflicts of interest has developed a sufficient gloss in the case law to provide a number of guidelines to practitioners as well as many difficult questions for analysi~.~ Thus far we are describing a subject matter that focuses largely on the ABA Code of Professional Responsibilitye and analytical treatment of the Code as a statute. The provisions