Professional Ethics for Attorneys

For many years the second quarter—April, May, and June—finds me talking. Yes, yes, I talk always, but the second quarter has me talking in public, mostly about professional ethics for attorneys. The State Bar of Arizona requires 15 hours of continuing legal education (CLE) between July 1 and June 30, and three of those hours must have ethics as their primary subject.

For reasons I don’t readily comprehend, many Arizona attorneys struggle to obtain their three hours of ethics. Whither, I—an attorney who devotes about one-third of his practice to ethics and related matters—get lots of opportunities to talk. My talking comprises some part of three hours, shared with one or more fellow panelists and, we