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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility: Ethics Opinions

Sources for ethics opinions are the ABA and the various state bar ethics committees. Generally, ethics opinions are written responses to questions posed by attorneys (informal) or are on matters of general interest (formal), and they are not binding on the courts.

Ethics Opinions must be distinguished from written decisions in lawyer disciplinary actions. Disciplinary decisions punish specific acts of misconduct, while ethics opinions are generally advisory in nature and applicable to all members of the bar.

ABA Formal & Informal Ethics Opinions

• Opinions of the Committee on Professional Ethics (Law Reserve KF 305 A22 1967)
• Informal Ethics Opinions (Law Reserve KF 305 A2 1975)
• Recent Ethics Opinions (Law Reserve KF 305 A2 1974- 1985) and separate binder for 1986-2003
• Formal and Informal Ethics Opinions: Formal Opinions 316-348, Informal Opinions 1285-1495 (Law Reserve KF 305 A2 1985a)
• Formal and Informal Ethics Opinions, 1983-1998 (Law Reserve KF 305 A2 2000)
• Westlaw database of ABA formal and informal opinions (formal dating from 1924, informal from 1961)
• LexisNexis databases of ABA Formal Opinions and Informal Opinions
• ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct provides ABA Ethics Opinions

State Ethics Opinions

• LegalEthics.com and FindLaw provide links to free online sources for most states that make opinions available electronically.
• National Reporter on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility (law looseleaf KF 306 A45 N3) publishes selected ethics opinions from stated, but it is not comprehensive.
  • on LexisNexis
• Westlaw has a database of combined state ethics opinions and separate databases for the individual states, xxeth-eo, where xx is the state's postal abbreviation
• ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct (Law Reserve KF 305 A15 A2) provides summaries (or "digests") of state ethics opinions in the "Ethics Opinions" volumes
  • Online edition provides searchable access to State Ethics Opinions
• Digest of Bar Association Ethics Opinions (law reserve KF 305 M3 1970) publishes digest opinions for the ABA, the various states and some local bar associations

Page maintained by: David Bachman
Last updated: February 2009