Ethics

This panel will discuss various ethical issues in consumer- and business-related bankruptcy cases and other restructurings.

Knowing who your client is and what duties you have is a problem in cases ranging from the mega Caesars bankruptcy case to actions involving a distressed small family business that is jointly owned by several relatives. This presentation will address several attorney/client ethical issues, both in and out of bankruptcy, when jointly representing clients, including practical considerations when representing a group of closely related businesses, attorney/client privileges between multiple clients, and state and federal law ethical issues related to “who is your client.”

Judges will respond to questions submitted from attendees in advance of the event.

This panel will present an examination of ethical and legal issues arising in the practice of bankruptcy law, with an emphasis on privacy, confidentiality and professionalism in the use of social media and networking.

This panel will discuss potential conflicts when a lender regularly recommends that a debtor hire their preferred CRO (the debtor is the CRO’s client, but a “one off” client) and the lender is a repeat business, as well as the 1% Rule and retention application disclosures/potential conflicts.

Join us as we explore three complicated areas of ethics that all attorneys should be wary of. First, we will discuss examples of sanctionable lawyer behavior and when that behavior can result in a law firm being sanctioned. Second, some pre-petition planning is necessary, obvious and required in order to advance your clients’ interests, but some planning can cross the line between permissible advocacy and fraud. How do you know where the line is so that you can represent your client to the best of your abilities and avoid trouble? Lastly, some conflicts are clear, while others are more nuanced. This panel delves into the duties regarding perilous conflicts, and steps you can take to make sure you comply with the appropriate rules of professional responsibility while still representing the best interests of the client.

In his popular poem, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, writer Robert Fulghum proclaimed: “Most of what I really need To know about how to live And what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.” Attorneys and others in the legal profession are often required to address challenging questions about ethics and unprofessional behavior. When faced with these issues, would you make the “right” call? You be the judge with interactive voting when faced with real issues from actual scenarios attorneys have had to address.

This year’s mountainside chat will address recent developments in the requirements for employment of disinterestedness, disclosure and disqualification. It will focus on two recent decisions relating to the extent to which a lack of disinterestedness or the presence of an ethical conflict of one firm member is, or is not, imputed on others within the same firm, and whether there is a difference between the two. The discussion will also address different views expressed by courts on the impact of receipt of a retainer, outstanding obligations for pre-petition services, and the potential for avoidance of pre-petition payments.

In his popular poem, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, writer Robert Fulghum proclaimed: “Most of what I really need To know about how to live And what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.” Attorneys and others in the legal profession are often required to address challenging questions about ethics and unprofessional behavior. When faced with these issues, would you make the “right” call? You be the judge with interactive voting when faced with real issues from actual scenarios attorneys have had to address.

"This panel will address emerging professional responsibility issues in commercial cases, including a recent Seventh Circuit decision involving the duty to advise of alternative transactional structures and other competency issues that affect fee awards and liability, standards for fee awards, disclosure and disinterestedness problems, and conflict problems in retention and the curative limits of use of conflicts and special counsel. "