Legal Research

"Ethics Committees and the Bystander Effect"

This post was written by Jack Newton: "Ethics committees across North America are, as always, in the process of examining issues of great importance to lawyers in the US and Canada. As part of process of establish new ethics opinions and rules, ethics committees typically hold hearings or publish proposed opinions for comment, seeking input from practicing attorneys.

Unfortunately, these hearings and requests for comment are often met with silence from practicing attorneys....

For example, only one practicing lawyer signed up to testify at the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission's hearing on the ethics of cloud computing....

The lack of response to these hearings and requests for comments isn't, I believe, due to apathy, but is a manifestation of the bystander effect..."

Full text and active links are available by clicking on the author's name.

Source: Slaw.ca, 25 October 2010. Reproduced with permission of Simon Fodden, founder of Slaw.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on October 26, 2010 (boomark / email).