NEW! Ethics Acceleration: Keeping up with Legal Ethics and the Changing Culture of Right and Wrong

[2 0r 3 hours of CLE credit; also can include professionalism, civility, anti-bias and diversity as needed.]

Description:No longer can attorneys rely on the ethical principles they learned in law school or as first year associates, for the landscape of professional ethics is changing rapidly. Foreign practice, public scrutiny, high-profile cases, rule revisions, and technology are just a few of the factors that are challenging lawyers to refurbish and retro-fit their ethical assumptions.

Ethics Acceleration is a wide-ranging and challenging three hour CLE ethics seminar. Using a mixture of lecture and interactive hypotheticals, the seminar will explore many issues coming into sharp focus in 2012, among them…[Read More...]

__________________________________________________________________________________

NEW! Ethics Tsunami: Surviving the Rising Tide of Legal Ethics Complexity

[2 0r 3 hours of CLE credit; also can include professionalism, civility, anti-bias and diversity as needed.]

Description: How will attorneys practice ethically when decades-old  consensus about what is ethical no longer exists?
Creating this wave of uncertainty are 1) the increasingly significant distinctions among legal specialties; 2) increased competition in the law, encouraging innovation and risk taking that go where the Rules never looked before; 3) the internationalization of legal practice; 4) more delegation and “unbundling” of legal tasks; 5) new developments in technology, some of which are becoming essential to practice, and others which pose potential traps and pitfalls; 6) the rapid exchange of information among attorneys, bar associations, scholars and courts, having the effect of making ethical shifts viral and national rather than local; and 7) changes in the ethical norms of the American culture generally.

Ethics Tsunami is a dynamic, interactive,  current-to-the-day three hour CLE ethics seminar. Using a mixture of lecture and interactive hypotheticals, the seminar will explore many issues being carried ashore with the ethics tide, among them…[Read More...]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

NEW! Ethics Safari: Surviving in the Legal Ethics Jungle

[2 0r 3 hours of CLE credit; also can include professionalism, civility, anti-bias and diversity as needed.]

Description: Despite constant professional rules revisions and ongoing adjustments, the gray areas of ethical legal practice remain and even expand, causing understandable confusion among attorneys, clients and ethics committees.  New technologies, new tactics, even new conflicts have begun to emerge, and the profession is scrambling to set its ethical bearings. More than ever, it is a jungle out there, and some traditional assumptions about the right way to practice law may not apply.

They may even be dangerous.

Ethics Safari examines these new issues, using actual experiences of attorneys across the nation… [Read More]

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

NEW! The Virtuous Lawyer’s Ethics Challenge,

[ 2-3 hours Legal Ethics CLE ]

Description: The key to ethical practice is not in knowing the rules, or even in having reliable ethical instincts.  It is a well-developed ability to spot and analyze ethical problems, dilemmas and traps before they occur, knowing how to mitigate them when they do occur, and navigating through them when they threaten to do real harm.  The best way to develop this ability, short of being engulfed by actual ethical challenges, is to practice the legal ethics decision-making process.

In The Virtuous Lawyer’s Ethics Challenge, that is what participants do. After a brief overview of methods, developments and tools by facilitator/presenter Jack Marshall, participants break into decision groups of 5-9 members. For 30 minutes, they examine a complex scenario, based on actual cases, raising multiple ethics issues. They then report their conclusions and recommendations to the group, which takes part in a spirited debate. The presenter supplements the discussion with relevant Rules, legal ethics opinions, and other useful information. [Read more...]

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Completely Revised and Updated! The Virtuous Lawyer’s Grand Tour

[ 2,3 or 4 hours Legal Ethics CLE ]

Description: Legal ethics is determined in places distant from the rules of any one jurisdiction, with almost daily developments that appear in new rules interpretations, court decisions, and legal ethics opinions across the country. It has been a significant and perplexing 12 months for legal ethics, with schisms of principle and language between the ABA and major jurisdictions, rule overhauls in California and elsewhere, and, as usual, New York, Florida, D.C. and other adventurous jurisdictions charting their  own paths through the thickets of controversy. Technology continued to create new ethical demands.  Lawyers wrestled with how to meet professional obligations while avoiding becoming a part of corporate fraud. Prosecutors and government attorneys encountered ethical challenges that the rules barely address. The last 12 months ended with more ethical gray areas than it began with, leaving problems that lawyers ignore at their peril.

Constantly updated  and interactive,  The Virtuous Lawyer’s Grand Tour takes attorneys on a wild and revealing tour of the most recent critical developments and controversies, from surprising discipline rulings and non-rulings…[Read more]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

New Edition! Ethics Chess

The most popular, most requested non-musical legal ethics program in the ProEthics repertoire!

[ 2 or 3 hours Legal Ethics CLE]

Description: Ethics Chess is an entertaining and field-tested program that provides real tools and strategies to help the practicing attorney avoid ethics problems.

As ethics rules become more complex, it is increasingly apparent that the objective of any prudent lawyer must be to avoid pre-unethical conditions.  You must recognize them and learn to take steps to avoid them several moves ahead.  You need to be proficient at Ethics Chess.

This seminar tests the attorney’s ethical chess skills while demonstrating some useful new moves.  This challenging, current, informative, and quickly paced session is a key to thinking as an ethical attorney must think, for his survival and that of his clients.

Among the topics addressed, and the useful “moves” described… [Read More...]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Plus these popular, updated ProEthics classics…

Zeal or No Zeal [2-3 hours]:  Tracks the evolution of zeal as a legal ethics standard through the various versions of the rules, with fascinating hypotheticals—based on actual cases—where attorneys employed too much zeal, no enough, or just the right amount under difficult circumstances.

The Mind of the Virtuous Lawyer [2-3 hours]:  Topics include pre-trial publicity, pro se clients, reporting misconduct, lawyer as witness, negotiation, tape-recording,  inadvertent disclosure and more.

Secrets of the Virtuous Lawyer [2-3 hours]: Topics include adversary errors, gifts, unrepresented parties, the imprudent client, conflict of issues, avoiding pre-unethical conditions, professionalism, the disabled client, supervising attorneys and more.

Resisting the Dark Side [2-3 hours]:  Topics include billing practices, negotiation, confidentiality, client communications, conflict of interest, fairness to the court and counsel, litigation “extortion,”coercive tactics, taint shopping  and more.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Legal Practice Specialty Series

Seminars Designed For the Unique Ethics Issues Facing Specific Practice Areas

[90 minute to 3 Hour Legal Ethics CLE]

• Ethics and the Government Lawyer: Tools, principles and  current  ethics issues in government practice.  Presented yearly for the D,C. Bar since 1999, and in various versions for the SEC, FDIC, FERC, FEMA, The U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Commerce

• The Virtuous Municipal Attorney: Staying ethical in the clash of politics and legal representation; tools and hypotheticals. Presented for national associations and individual municipalities.

• Too Many Hats: The Ethical Challenges of Corporate Counsel Ethical considerations and pitfalls for corporate and organization counsel. Presented for numerous corporate legal departments and national associations.

• The Virtuous Litigator: Litigation ethics dilemmas. Previously presented for the American Bar Association, The D.C. Bar, major law firms.

• Advanced Real Estate Practice Ethics:  Principles and problems is real estate practice legal ethics. Previously presented for Virginia CLE, major law firms.

• Secrets of the Virtuous I.P. Lawyer: The complex legal ethics dilemmas of trademarks, patents and copyrights. Previously presented for Virginia CLE and major law firms.

• The Mind of the Virtuous Employment Lawyer: Ethics issues peculiar to the practice of employment law. Previously presented for Virginia CLE.

• The Virtuous Bankruptcy Lawyer: Ethics issues for bankruptcy specialists. Presented for a major law firm.

• Also: ProEthics has presented seminars in the following specialty areas:

Administrative law

Admiralty

Asset management

Criminal prosecution

Energy law

Family law

Federal claims

Government contracts

Immigration

Insurance practice

Mediation

Negotiation

Personal Injury law

Pro Se representation

Public interest law

Regulation

Founded in 1994, ProEthics has gained a national reputation for creating and delivering professional ethics  training sessions, seminars, retreats and presentations that lead the field in their creativity, timeliness, energy and effectiveness.

ProEthics makes the exploration of legal, business and professional ethics stimulating and memorable, while  firmly relating the practice of ethics to practical realities. Using a multi-faceted approach that may include drama, humor, history and popular culture, our seminars  challenge participants with interactive exercises and hypotheticals taken from actual cases and events.

ProEthics consults to and presents seminars for a wide variety of  organizations in many fields, including..

• State and local bar associations, including the American Bar Association
• Law firms (large and small)
• Fortune 500 companies,
• Federal and local government agencies
• Municipalities
• Charities and Non-profit organizations
• Medical research facilities
• Accounting firms
• Trade associations across the country and around the world.

ProEthics’ Secret Weapon, The Ethical Arts Players: The most difficult ethical problems are far easier to consider when they are seen rather than read, and it is the job of The Ethical Arts Players to bring ethical dilemmas to life with drama, wit, comedy, and even music.

Established in 1993, the Washington, D.C. based troupe has performed for professional groups in law, medicine, research, government and business, illuminating  ethical situations and challenging participants to analyze them. The 15-member group consists of experienced and versatile professional actors with abundant credits in television, movies, stage and industrial shows.

[Read More...]

Recent evaluation comments from seminar attendees (Nov. 2009- Sept. 2010) :

• “Jack is a great speaker with a telling knowledge of the rules, very practical and helpful advice.”

• “Very engaging and entertaining…made a dry topic interesting.”

• “I loved Jack’s presentation: lively and interesting.”

• “The most engaging ethics session I have seen in 27 years of practice!”

• “Jack Marshall was amazing. Extremely interesting and fun to listen to.”

• “Great presentation.”

• “One of the best CLEs I’ve attended in 19 years.”

• “Mr. Marshall makes ethics interesting  (even fun!) and keeps things moving.”

• “Did not think I was going to  enjoy, but I did!”

• “Jack Marshall’s ethics courses are always THE BEST!”

• Mr. Marshall’s presentations are always excellent. I look forwrad to them and try to attend one each year to satisfy my state’s ethics requirement.

[For a detailed description of the unique ProEthics Approach to Legal Ethics CLE, please go here...]

The Country-Western Musical CLE Seminar

ProEthics’ newest musical CLE seminar, “Ethics By The Number, Conflicts By The Score: An Ethics Jamboree!”, premiered April 20 at the D.C. Bar’s annual Judicial Conference. It was a great hit with the audience, which was tested with more than a score of legal ethics issues posed by guitarist-singer Mike Messer’s renditions of humorous parodies of such Country classics as “Crazy,” “El Paso,” “Long, Long Time,” “The Gambler,” Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Lawyers,’ and more. Among the topics covered: fee padding, advertising, lawyer blogging, predictive coding, lawyer character, the profession of law vs. the business of law, client perjury, falsity, and more.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

ProEthics also features lively and challenging programs and seminars on…

Business Ethics and management ethics...including

• NEW!  Business  Ethics Rock!  [Read more]

• The most memorable  business ethics facilitator in the galaxy…Captain Compliance!       [Read more]

and…

Charity and not-for-profit ethics for boards, managers, fundraisers and lawyers…[Read more]

Sexual harassment and workplace ethics…effective, interactive, and believe it or not,  fun … [Read more]

Accounting Ethics for non-boring accountants … [Read more]

And the Most Acclaimed of All..

ProEthics’ Musical Legal Ethics CLE Seminars!

The most popular, and perhaps the most effective, of all the ProEthics legal ethics seminars are those combining the talents of The Ethical Arts Players, musical parody, classic songs, and challenging hypotheticals. The current line-up includes…

NEW! Ethics Rock Extreme: From the opening strains of the Queen parody medley, to an audience sing-along to the ethical dilemma-filled parody of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” (a sing-along!)  Ethics Rock Extreme explores the latest developments in the always-dynamic field of professional ethics with parodies of a wide-ranging selection of hits from diverse artists such as Paul Simon, The Police, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan and more.  [Read more]

THE CHAMPION! Ethics Rock! ProEthics’ all-time most requested program, with performances for more than twenty bar associations, plus law firms, professional groups, law schools, alumni groups and corporate law departments. [Read more]

Jack’s FAVORITE!…Ethics Blues. It requires a piano, but is well worth it. Professional cabaret singer, comic and actress Esther Covington accompanies herself as she sings lilting parodies that pack more ethics issues and more great music into a single seminar than any program before or since—- to the unforgettable tunes of Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and others. [Read more]