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A Quagmire Of Uncertainty

By By Jeffrey P. Ayres
March 01, 2006

For many years, corporations and other clients have employed in-house counsel to provide legal services, either in conjunction with outside counsel or not. A more recent trend is for law firms to designate a partner or group of attorneys to serve as in-house legal counsel to the firm. One of the thornier issues for in-house counsel in both contexts centers upon the unique ethics issues that must be considered and addressed.

In that regard, most lawyers considering their ethical obligations under applicable rules of professional conduct typically aren't employees or partners of the client itself. Likewise, ethics rules and authorities, virtually invariably, address the traditional attorney-client relationship. The role of in-house corporate and law firm counsel, from an ethical perspective, has received very little reported attention.

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