Confidentiality and Ethics in a Wired World
Why Attend?
Communication may be getting easier, but confidential information is getting harder to keep.
In today's wired practice, you and others in your firm communicate regularly with clients in electronic form. How does this kind of electronic information impact your attorney-client relationships, the attorney work-product doctrine, and your fundamental duty of confidentiality?
The amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have opened the door to discovery of electronically stored data, and client information that used to be considered confidential - including e-mail communications - may now be subject to disclosure. When electronically stored data is under dispute, deleting or "scrubbing" that data can have serious consequences for the lawyer and the law firm. Problems also arise when a document containing confidential information and its accompanying e-data are inadvertently disclosed.
The required disclosure of electronically stored information is creating a host of new ethical questions. What are your ethical obligations when dealing with electronically stored confidential client communications? Can you still rely upon e-mail confidentiality disclaimers? How does this shifting landscape affect your duties towards your clients? What steps can you take today to protect electronically stored information that could become the subject of discovery tomorrow?
Led by an expert faculty, this timely and fascinating program will tell you what you need to know about:
Hi-tech reality and ethical obligations: How electronic information affect the attorney-client relationship, the work-product doctrine, and the attorney’s fundamental duty of confidentiality
ABA Model Rule 1.6 -- Confidentiality of Information: The impact on the disclosing attorney and the receiving attorney
E-mail confidentiality disclaimers: Are they effective? Are they worthwhile?
Protecting information with "reasonable precautions" under Rule 1.6
Best practices in a wired world
And more!
This interactive seminar affords the opportunity to submit questions in advance and/or during the program for discussion by the faculty.
Need ethics credit? This seminar qualifies for 1.0 to 1.2 ethics credit hours,depending on state requirements, in MCLE jurisdictions that accredit live telephone seminars and/or webcasts.
Faculty
James Moliterno, Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law, Director, Legal Skills Program, The College of William & Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law, Williamsburg, Virginia
Carolyn Witherspoon, Cross, Witherspoon & Galchus, P.C., Little Rock, Arkansas
Program Schedule
Total 60-minute hours of instruction: 1.0 ethics; Total 50-minute hours: 1.2 ethics
Times
Eastern 12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.
Central 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Mountain 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Pacific 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Alaska 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Hawaii 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.
