Matt Kaiser Discussed Legal Ethics and Current Government Investigations at the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers
On Aug. 3, Matt Kaiser spoke at the annual meeting of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) in Chicago about legal ethics issues that have arisen from the recent investigations of the Trump Administration, and allegations of misconduct. The focus of the panel was on the conduct of lawyers involved in these cases and how the Rules of Professional Conduct are in play in such high profile cases.
Lawyers like Michael Cohen, Rudy Guiliani, Michael Avenati, and others, have had their conduct as lawyers closely watched. The discussion at APRL touched on issues about attorneys making frivolous legal arguments, impermissible disclosure of client information, public statements, use of ill-gotten evidence, false posturing of loyalties to clients and others, payment of legal fees influencing representation, misapplication of the executive and attorney-client privileges, the disclosure of a client’s identity, puffery pushed beyond permissible limits into deceit, conflicts of interest in sorting out the scope of permissible joint representations in complex and secret government investigations.
APRL is comprised of more than 450 lawyers, law professors and judges who have an interest in lawyers’ professional responsibility, legal ethics, legal malpractice, and the evolving law of lawyering, primarily through the application of the rules of lawyer ethics to the practice of law. APRL members provide advice to lawyers on legal ethics issues, defend lawyers in discipline matters or civil malpractice cases, act as expert witnesses, teach professional responsibility courses in law schools, or perform ethics-related functions in law firms.
