Legal Profession

3 units

[This course is open to LLM, MLS and Exchange students only.] The goal of this course is to understand the ethical dilemmas practicing lawyers face and to bridge the cultural gap faced by foreign-trained lawyers in understanding the U.S. legal profession's values of providing competent legal representation and promoting justice and fairness. The course will examine the nature and types of lawyer regulation, attorney-client relationships, confidentiality rules, conflicts of interest, duties to courts, adversaries and third parties, client solicitation and billing, and access to legal services. The course will primarily address the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct but also consider ethical duties under common law and other sources of authority. The course will be taught through pre-recorded lectures on each chapter and in-person classes consisting of problem analysis and discussion. This 3-credit course has 2 hours of in-person class time and 1 hour of asynchronous lectures per week. Regular class attendance and viewing of the asynchronous lectures are required. Grades will be based on a series of graded quizzes and a limited open-book final exam (students may only use their copy of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct).