COURSE DESCRIPTION
This annual ethics update will cover a wide range of ethical developments important to your civil litigation practice. The program will provide detailed coverage of developments in conflicts of interest in litigation, confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege, and ethics in defense and common interest agreements. The program will provide a wide-ranging discussion of the ethical issues that arise with the spread, use and development of technology in litigation. Also, the panel will discuss ethical issues in discovery of digital files, records, and communications. Please join for this annual program which will provide you with a lively discussion of ethical developments important to civil litigation practice.
Day 1:
- Ethics and discovery
- Ethics and preparing witnesses – the limits of coaching
- Recent developments in conflicts of interest, part 1
Day 2:
- Annual technology review – the many ways in which technology can cause ethical traps for lawyers in litigation
- Client confidentiality, the attorney-client privilege, and work product doctrine
- Recent developments in conflicts of interest, part 2
Speakers:
Lucian T. Pera is a partner in the Memphis office of Adams & Reese, LLP. His practice includes professional malpractice litigation as well as counseling lawyers and law firms in the area of ethics and professional responsibility. He was a member of the ABA’s Ethics 2000 Commission and is co-author of "Ethics and Lawyering Today," a national e-mail newsletter on lawyer ethics, which is accessible at: www.ethicsandlawyering.com. He is the immediate past Treasurer of the ABA and currently serves as Vice President of the Tennessee Bar Association. Before entering private practice, he served as a judicial clerk to Judge Harry W. Wellford of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Pera received his A.B. with honors from Princeton University and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law.
William Freivogel is the principal of Freivogel Ethics Consulting and is an independent consultant to law firms on ethics and risk management. He was a trial lawyer for 22 years and has practiced in the areas of legal ethics and lawyer malpractice for more than 25 years. He is chair of the Editorial Board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct. He maintains the Web site “Freivogel on Conflicts” at www.freivogelonconflicts.com <http://www.freivogelonconflicts.com/> . Mr. Freivogel is a graduate of the University of Illinois (Champaign), where he received his B.S. and LL.B.
Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a substantial practice advising clients on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. For more than 30 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written “The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner’s Guide,” a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation. Mr. Spahn has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.