NYCLA’s Ethics Hotline provides free, confidential advice to members concerning ethics questions that may arise in the course of their practice. The Hotline is staffed on a voluntary, rotating basis by members of the NYCLA Professional Ethics Committee, which includes a variety of practitioners with an interest in ethics. The names and phone numbers of Hotline staffers are available on the Association’s website at www.nycla.org, in its publication, the New York County Lawyer, or by calling NYCLA at 212-267-6646.
Here are some basic guidelines on the kinds of questions a Committee member staffing the Hotline is permitted to answer. First, questions about the inquiring lawyer’s prospective conduct may be answered, but not questions about the conduct of another attorney. The Hotline does not give opinions about the conduct of the inquiring attorney’s adversary. Second, the Hotline does not express opinions about matters that are currently the subject of litigation and/or that could be answered by a judge presiding over pending litigation.
In addition, because our Committee’s jurisdiction is generally limited to interpretation of the Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility, members staffing the Hotline will not interpret questions of substantive law raised in statutes, court rules or court decisions. For example, we may answer a question about the reasonableness of a fee under Disciplinary Rule 2-106 but will not advise whether a lawyer’s charging lien exists or is legally enforceable. Valid questions may relate to conflict situations, advertising limitations, office sharing or a lawyer’s ethical obligations with respect to confidentiality.
Specific advice is generally not given, as there is a limit to how much detail can be imported from a brief phone call. Therefore, the attorney staffing the Hotline will cite the applicable provisions of the Code and give general guidance but will not be able to definitively answer all questions posed by callers. Why? Because the ethical questions that arise in the course of our practice are often highly complex and fact specific and cannot be answered in a brief phone call to an ethics hotline. In the event that a question to the Hotline is too complex or fact intensive for a quick answer, a caller may request that the Committee publish an opinion. And, if the Committee member determines that the question is one of wide applicability so that a written opinion would be of value to the greater bar, the member may request that the Committee issue a formal written opinion. Since these opinions require substantial review and the consensus of the full Committee, it often takes several months to issue an opinion. And in certain cases, after discussion and/or research and drafting, the Committee may determine that it is unable to reach needed for an opinion to be issued.
A word about confidentiality is in order. Hotline callers will be asked for their names and phone numbers in case the Hotline needs to correct or supplement any oral advice given. However, the identity and substance of all Hotline calls are confidential and not shared either with the full Committee or with anyone outside the Committee. The Hotline will not divulge the identity of its callers and if a formal written opinion is issued in response to a question raised by a caller, the opinion will generalize the facts sufficiently to shield the caller’s identity. However, Hotline callers should understand before deciding to utilize the Hotline that the Committee is not required to obtain their consent to draft an opinion on an issue stemming from a caller’s inquiry. Sometimes an ethics problem is sufficiently advanced that the Hotline cannot assist the caller and the inquiring attorney is advised to retain independent counsel. For example, an attorney who is the subject of a formal investigation by the Departmental Disciplinary Committee, is the subject of a judicial Order to Show Cause or is named in a civil suit is well advised to retain private counsel.
The Ethics Hotline is a valuable service to the practicing bar. The Professional Ethics Committee urges NYCLA members to make full use of the Hotline. We encourage NYCLA members with an interest in professional ethics to join our Committee. Anyone with questions is welcome to contact us: Co-Chairs Barry Temkin at 212-809-8000 (Barry.Temkin@AIG.com) or Wally Larson at 212-530-5728 (WLarson@Milbank.com).