Different Roles of the Lawyer · 4-10% of the exam
18.1.1Independent judgment and candid advice (Rule 2.1)
Quick review — Rule 2.1 candid advisor (taught fully in Chapter 4)
Four points, and the third is where the exam lives.
- Independent professional judgment and candid advice are required; softening the bottom line to please the client violates the rule.
- Referring to moral, economic, social, and political factors is permitted, not required.
- The lawyer may volunteer advice the client did not request; when the lawyer knows the client is contemplating action related to the representation that will likely produce substantial adverse legal consequences, offering that advice may be required.
- Candor runs to the overall conclusion, not just individual premises — a series of accurate sentences that combine into a misleading picture of the risk still violates Rule 2.1.
Example 1
Ex. 1
Uma asks her lawyer Tara whether expanding into a regulated market is safe. Tara replies that no enforcement action has ever been brought against Uma's company, that the governing statute has not been amended in nine years, and that the agency's last three published opinions favored the industry. Every sentence is accurate, and the letter reads as approval. Tara knows the agency opened an investigation into this exact practice last month and leaves it out. Candor runs to the overall conclusion, not just the individual premises, so accurate sentences that combine into a misleading picture of the risk still violate Rule 2.1. Read Tara's letter the way Uma will read it, then ask whether the picture it leaves is the one the facts support.
Questions · 2
Q 01ch18-e01
Question 1 of 2 · Rule 2.1
Attorney advised Client, a company that rents electric cargo bicycles, about a proposed automatic-renewal billing plan for its riders. Attorney concluded that the plan broke no statute but that the consumer-protection division had begun a sweep of automatic-renewal programs and would very likely open a file on this one. Client had spent a year building the plan and made plain that it wanted to launch. In a written opinion Attorney wrote that no statute barred the plan, that no ruling had ever condemned a plan of this kind, and that the launch should go smoothly. Every sentence Attorney wrote was accurate. Attorney left the enforcement assessment out. Is Attorney subject to discipline?
Keys 1 to 4 choose.