Ethics

    Oliver Wendell Holmes drew an analogy to dueling to justify what is now called Rambo lawyering.  Lon Fuller analogized lawyers? ethics of advocacy to various baseball tactics, like a catcher ?pulling? a pitch into the strike zone.  Abbe and I use analogies to tennis in ULE and to baseball in our review of Markovits?s book.

    The NYT had an article on 4/22/10 titled, ?Fouling to Protect a Lead: Debated but Rarely Done.?  Does it raise analogies to advising a client to commit an ?efficient breach? of contract, or providing information to a client regarding the unlikelihood that a questionable deduction with be audited by the IRS, or otherwise giving advice so that a client can make a cost-benefit analysis of whether to break the law?  Or does it suggest an analogy to violating MR 3.4(e) by alluding in trial to inadmissible evidence?  Here?s the beginning of the NYT article:

?The first-round playoff series last year between the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls was a memorable montage of overtimes and clutch shots.  Celtics Coach Doc Rivers remembers it for another reason.

?In game 4, Boston held a 3-point lead with nine seconds remaining in overtime.  He instructed his team to intentionally foul so Chicago could get only 2 points at the free-throw line, instead of potentially tying the game with a 3-pointer.  His players failed to foul.  Ben Gordon?s 3 tied the game and Chicago won in double overtime.

??We literally forgot to foul,? Rivers said. ?We came out of the timeout and were going to foul.  We messed it up.  They score and win the game in overtime.??

    The article concludes: ?So when to foul? ... For coaches, it is a puzzle with no correct answer and only opportunities for regret.?

    Are there analogies to lawyers? ethics and, if so, how do they run?