Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

This course satisfies the J.D. Professional Responsibility requirement.

Not open to students who have taken another two- or three-credit
professional responsibility course.
Evaluation: open-book final exam, class participation, several short
written assignments.

This course will survey the generally applicable sources of ethics
guidance for attorneys practicing in the United States with a focus on the
ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and spend some time on the
key distinctions presented by the New York Rules of Professional Conduct.
This course will place a special emphasis on identifying those issues likely
to be encountered by young attorneys within their first few years of
practice. Classroom discussions will target not only rule-based analysis
and practical implications of everyday ethics problems but also those
areas that are fertile ground for academic and theoretical debate.

The primary source of a student's grade will be a final exam. There will
be a few short written assignments based on problems contained in the
class reading materials that will also contribute to the grade and which
will form the basis of classroom discussion. Class participation is
expected from all students and will also count towards the final grade.