CURRENT PROJECTS
FUTURE PLANS

 

CURRENT PROJECTS, continued ...

Public Service Involvement: The Center is dedicated to working toward promoting the ethical of practice of law. Its faculty has been involved in a number public interest projects designed to improve the profession.

In 2001-2002, Professor Richard Zitrin served as:

  • A consultant to both the California State Bar ethics committee and Assemblyman Darryl Steinberg's office in redrafting the California ethics rules to allow government attorneys to blow the whistle on governmental wrongdoing.
  • Drafter and principal proponent of a proposed ethics rule preventing the secret settlement of cases when it would harm the public, now supported by several dozen ethics professors.
  • Consultant to the California Senate Judiciary Committee on SB11, a bill that would prevent secret settlements of lawsuits impacting the public.
  • Ethics expert to the Louisiana Supreme Court's Judicial College on the issues of ethics in class action law and court secrecy.
  • Pro bono counsel for Department of Insurance lawyer Cindy Ossias, a whistleblower who exposed wrongdoing by Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. In her state bar investigation, Ms. Ossias was exonerated.
  • Ethics consultant to the Bar Association of San Francisco's pro bono programs.
Professor Josh Davis was appointed in 2001 by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court to serve as Reporter to the California Supreme Court Advisory Task Force on Multijurisdictional Practice. After that committee's report recommended that lawyers licensed to practice law in other states be allowed greater opportunities to practice in California without becoming members of the California bar, the Chief Justice again appointed Professor Davis to serve as Reporter to the committee that will recommend how to implement this report.

Three members of USF's ethics faculty have served the California State Bar's Committee on Professional Responsibility and Competence as both Chair and Special Advisor--Professor Zitrin and adjunct professors Mark Tuft and Carol M. Langford. Professor Tuft is also a member of the California Commission for the Revision of the Rules reactivated in 2001. Professor Langford has also served as chair of the State Bar's Law Practice Management section.

Website, Discussion Threads, and Survey: An important component of this website is the Open Dialogue section designed for interactive discussion threads on topics relevant to legal ethics. We intend Open Dialogue to serve as a place to debate current legal ethics issues, and as a forum for exchanging ideas about the way legal ethics is currently being taught-and how the subject should be taught-in our law schools.

In addition, the Center has developed a Survey asking how legal ethics and professional responsibility are currently taught at law schools. We encourage teachers of these courses to take a few minutes to respond to this survey. We will publish the data obtained on the website.

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