The Battle Over the Legal Ethics Confidentiality Rule in the United States

The American Bar Association (ABA) has just completed a marathon project to revise the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The most contentious issue of that project involved the rule on confidentiality. This article is about the debate that took place over the confidentiality rule. The first section describes the role of the ABA in establishing standards of conduct for attorneys in the United States and the history of confidentiality standards in the United States through the twentieth century. Part two explains the debate about the previous rule and the changes that the ABA House of Delegates eventually approved. The third section discusses the policy arguments that are at the center of this debate