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• Ethical Inquiries

Submitting Inquiries to the MBA Committee on Professional Ethics

The Massachusetts Bar Association realizes that ethical concerns arise in every attorney's practice. To help, the MBA's Committee on Professional Ethics offers a variety of options for attorneys who have specific ethical inquiries or want to stay abreast of the newest Opinions of the Committee on Professional Ethics. As a benefit of your MBA Membership, this service is free of charge.

Published opinions

Published opinions of the MBA Committee on Professional Ethics dating  back to 1973 are online; you can search them using any key word(s) or browse the entire collection.

Written Inquiries

All requests for ethical advice must be submitted in writing either by fax or e-mail. Your inquiry must include:

• A brief summary of the facts raising the ethical issue;
• The ethical problem as you see it; and
• Whether there is an emergency requiring a rapid response.

In accordance with the rules that govern the Committee on Professional Ethics, advice may not be rendered in instances where the matter is pending before a court or tribunal, contains a question of substantive law or unauthorized practice of law, pertains to a hypothetical scenario or questions the conduct of another attorney.

Mail your request to:

The Committee on Professional Ethics
Massachusetts Bar Association
20 West St.
Boston, MA 02111-1204
Or fax: (617) 338-0636
Or e-mail: Jean Stevens

Emergency Advice

Inquiries requiring emergency advice will be handled, when feasible, on an expedited basis by a single committee member. Emergency inquiries must also be in writing. Your inquiry should be either faxed to the number or e-mailed to the e-mail address specified above with an indication that your inquiry should receive emergency consideration.

Opinions of the Committee on Professional Ethics

In 1973, the MBA's Committee on Professional Ethics began publishing opinions interpreting the Rules of Professional Conduct. The opinions of the committee cover a wide range of topics that affect the practice of law, including conflict of interests, solicitation of business and issues relating to confidentiality.

To keep you updated, the MBA offers subscriptions to The Opinions of the Committee on Professional Ethics. This subscription entitles you to automatically receive opinions published throughout the year. Your subscription also includes a three-ring binder system containing a copy of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and all of the opinions published since Jan. 1, 1998, when the new rules went into effect.

The committee only gives advice. It is not a governmental body and its advice has no binding force, although successive bar counsel have stated that as a general rule, they will not take disciplinary action against lawyers who follow the committee's advice if they have given the committee all the relevant facts. That, however, is a matter of bar counsel's policy, not of committee power. As might be expected when the subject matter involves sensitive questions of lawyers' obligations, bar counsel has very occasionally expressed public disagreement with the committee's views.