Legal Ethics: Selective Secondary Sources

Available at Lexis, Westlaw, and ABA/BNA lawyer's Manual on Professional Conduct.

This is well-known among the nation's lawyers as the most authoritative source for news and guidance on virtually every aspect of attorney conduct and legal ethics. This includes Current Reports, ABA formal/informal ethics opinions and a digest of state ethics opinions, and practice guides.
Available in BloombergBNA and Lexis.

An updated version is available on Westlaw.
It contains the full text of Legal Ethics - a one volume treatise organized around the ABA's Model Rules. It provides thorough author commentary from authors John Dzienkowski and Ronald Rotunda, along with references to current case law and to the ALI's Restatement of the Law 3d - Law Governing Lawyers. A document is a section of text, Model Rule, Appendix, or Canon.

Available on Lexis.
It is organized by state and contains state ethical codes, the full text of select state ethics opinions, some case law, and bibliographies of books and articles about legal ethics. This set provides more of the legislative history of each state's ethical code and provides the full text rather than digests of ethics opinions.

This practice-oriented guide addresses the problems faced by attorneys when serving as criminal defense counsel. It provides trial guidance for striking the correct balance between duty to the client under the Sixth Amendment representing a client's interests, yet obeying the law and maintaining a profitable practice. Topics include the scope of the right to counsel, duty of candor, confidentiality of information, attorney-client privilege, subpoenas and search warrants directed at attorneys, and tampering with physical evidence or documentary evidence. Covers liability issues of criminal defense lawyers as potential accessories, hindering, compounding, misprision, and malpractice for the criminal defense lawyer.

Restatement of the Law of the Law Governing Lawyers provides a thorough explanation and analysis of United States law concerning lawyers. Compiled by a panel of judges and scholars, it offers analysis, systematization, and guidance pertinent to the law governing law practice. Coverage includes tort doctrine relating to: Malpractice, Vicarious liability, Work product doctrine, Attorney-client privilege, Agent-principal relationship, Related areas.

It contains, "The history of the applicable ethics rules, How you could inadvertently be violating those rules and exposing yourself to discipline even where no one is harmed, The pitfalls of the Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account (IOLTA) requirements, Ways to work with your banker and accountant to set up the office systems you need to avoid trust account problems."

This two volume looseleaf contains scholarly commentary on the Model Rules and citations to case law.