Justice, Conduct, Jurisdiction

Disciplinary Actions in Lawyer’s Practice

Clarifying Legal Ethics

When lawyers mess up and break the rules of their profession, they face disciplinary actions. These actions are punishments handed down by the legal community for misconduct, incompetence, conflicts of interest, blabbing confidential info, or doing something outright illegal.

Bar associations, the groups that oversee lawyers, usually set these rules. The disciplinary process usually starts with an investigation and then moves to a hearing. Depending on how serious the violation is, the consequences can range from a slap on the wrist to being kicked out of the profession entirely. That’s what disbarment is — having your attorney license revoked.

The roots of lawyer discipline are somewhere in ancient Rome, where advocates could face penalties if they were found to have deceived the court. However, the formalized process of lawyer discipline as we know it today started to develop in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the U.S., the American Bar Association was founded in 1878, and it defined ethical standards for lawyers. The ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, first established in the 1980s, serve as the basis for such regulations in many states.

The main goal of disciplinary actions is not to constantly kick the lawyers, but rather to protect the public and maintain the integrity of the legal field. So, these…