For more than ninety years, the
American Bar Association has provided leadership in
legal ethics and professional responsibility through
the adoption of professional standards that serve as
models of the regulatory law governing the legal
profession.
On August 27, 1908, the Association adopted the
original Canons of Professional Ethics. These were
based principally on the Code of Ethics adopted by
the Alabama Bar Association in 1887, which in turn
had been borrowed largely from the lectures of Judge
George Sharswood, published in 1854 as
Professional Ethics, and from the fifty
resolutions included in David Hoffman's A Course
of Legal Study (2d ed. 1836). Piecemeal
amendments to the Canons occasionally followed.
In 1913, the Standing Committee on Professional
Ethics of the American Bar Association was
established to keep the Association informed about
state and local bar activities concerning
professional ethics. In 1919 the name of the
Committee was changed to the Committee on
Professional Ethics and Grievances; its role was
expanded in 1922 to include issuing opinions
"concerning professional conduct, and particularly
concerning the application of the tenets of ethics
thereto." In 1958 the Committee on Professional
Ethics and Grievances was separated into two
committees: a Committee on Professional Grievances,
with authority to review issues of professional
misconduct, and a Committee on Professional Ethics
with responsibility to express its opinion
concerning proper professional and judicial conduct.
The Committee on Professional Grievances was
discontinued in 1971. The name of the Committee on
Professional Ethics was changed to the Committee on
Ethics and Professional Responsibility in 1971 and
remains so.
In 1964, at the request of President Lewis F. Powell
Jr., the House of Delegates of the American Bar
Association created a Special Committee on
Evaluation of Ethical Standards (the "Wright
Committee") to assess whether changes should be made
in the then-current Canons of Professional Ethics.
In response, the Committee produced the Model Code
of Professional Responsibility. The Model Code was
adopted by the House of Delegates on August 12,
1969, and subsequently by the vast majority of state
and federal jurisdictions.
In 1977, the American Bar Association created the
Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards
to undertake a comprehensive rethinking of the
ethical premises and problems of the legal
profession. Upon evaluating the Model Code and
determining that amendment of the Code would not
achieve a comprehensive statement of the law
governing the legal profession, the Commission
commenced a six-year study and drafting process that
produced the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
The Model Rules were adopted by the House of
Delegates of the American Bar Association on August
2, 1983. At the time this edition went to press, all
but eight of the jurisdictions had adopted new
professional standards based on these Model Rules.
Between 1983 and 2002, the House amended the Rules
and Comments on fourteen different occasions. In
1997, the American Bar Association created the
Commission on Evaluation of the Rules of
Professional Conduct ("Ethics 2000 Commission") to
comprehensively review the Model Rules and propose
amendments as deemed appropriate. On February 5,
2002 the House of Delegates adopted a series of
amendments that arose from this process.
In 2000, the American Bar Association created the
Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice to
research, study and report on the application of
current ethics and bar admission rules to the
multijurisdictional practice of law. On August 12,
2002 the House of Delegates adopted amendments to
Rules 5.5 and 8.5 as a result of the Commission's
work and recommendations.
The American Bar Association continues to pursue its
goal of assuring the highest standards of
professional competence and ethical conduct. The
Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional
Responsibility, charged with interpreting the
professional standards of the Association and
recommending appropriate amendments and
clarifications, issues opinions interpreting the
Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the Code of
Judicial Conduct. The opinions of the Committee are
published by the American Bar Association in a
series of hard bound volumes containing opinions
from 1924 through 1998 and the current loose-leaf
subscription service, Recent Ethics Opinions,
starting in 1999.
Requests that
the Committee issue opinions on particular questions
of professional and judicial conduct should be
directed to the American Bar Association, Center for
Professional Responsibility, 541 North Fairbanks
Court, Chicago, Illinois 60611.
Preamble
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