Ethics

This session will discuss recent bankruptcy cases and their anticipated impact on business bankruptcy cases, as well as new trends.

This is a chance for you to be a Supreme Court Justice. This panel will present the arguments on both sides of several important bankruptcy issues on which the circuits are split. Learn about the issues, and decide on which side of the divide you fall.

This panel will explore cutting-edge issues dealing with the ethical implications of social media and advancing technology on the practice of law. Issues to be discussed include professional responsibility requirements for attorneys using social media for advertising and other purposes, best practices for crafting social media policies, and a review of recent case law and state rules and opinions.

Ethics & Professional Compensation/Real Estate Committees: This panel will explore various ethical issues that often arise in a single asset real estate bankruptcy case from the perspectives of the debtor, secured creditor and bankruptcy judge — via an entertaining and interactive fictional case study.

The lure of the Internet continues to pose ethical challenges, especially in regards to privacy and transparency, for members of the bar who use social media as part of their professional lives. This panel will examine the latest legal and ethical developments in the areas of disclosure and social media.

This panel is for participants who are either solo or small-firm practitioners and will include such topics as paperless offices, trust funds and accounting, managing workflow, and the implications on the office in the event of a natural disaster.

Attorney professionalism is dedication to service to clients and a commitment to promoting respect for the legal system in pursuit of justice and the public good, characterized by ethical conduct, competence, good judgment, integrity and civility. This first-of-its-kind course explores the challenges and goals of professionalism among bankruptcy attorneys and other professionals.

This panel will explore the ethical boundaries of secrecy and confidentiality issues in a bankruptcy case. May and should a creditor/attorney for the debtor serve on a creditors’ committee, and to what extent may relevant information be divulged? To what extent may an attorney reveal information received by him/her during a retention interview if he/she is not hired but is later retained by another party? What problems arise if information to be divulged by one client could have an adverse impact on another? To what extent does a debtor’s duty to reveal information trump its desire to protect business secrets, and how should the situation be handled? Can a case tolerate disparate scopes of information being given to parties in interest? Do the ethical issues change with the “environment” (court, mediation, negotiation, pitch for business)?