The Complexities of Lawyer Ethics Code Drafting: The Contributions of Professor Fred Zacharias

The author had published an article in 2002 entitled Lawyer Ethics Code Drafting in the Twenty-First Century, in which he reflected on his experience as Chief Reporter to the American Bar Association's Commission on the Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct (Commission), better known as the Ethics 2000 Commission or simply E2K. In reviewing both his 2002 article and Professor Fred Zacharias's scholarship, he observed that Zacharias and him touched upon many of the same themes. According to Zacharias, in addition to providing the basis for lawyer discipline, lawyer ethics codes provide guidance for lawyers in choosing from among several [otherwise] permissible courses of conduct because, at least on occasion, lawyers do consult and rely upon professional codes for guidance even when the codes pose no threat [of discipline]. The author is confident that future legal ethics scholars will acknowledge and extend his valuable contributions to this field.