At least in New York.
The New York bar has launched a Mobile Ethics App that allows judges, lawyers and law students to access legal ethics advice from their smartphones.
The State Bar has made its catalog of more than 900 legal ethics opinions,available on an app for iPhones, Android phones and BlackBerrys, as well as iPads, through their respective app marketplaces. “Ethics questions can arise in many different contexts. The NYSBA Mobile Ethics App will allow judges, lawyers and others to access the opinions of the Association’s Professional Ethics Committee on the spot from the convenience of their mobile devices,” said Association President Vincent E. Doyle III of Buffalo (Connors & Vilardo). “The State Bar is pleased to provide this service to its members and the legal community.”
This is a terrific idea, and it is to be hoped that other bar associations follow suit.
Now if someone will develop an app for government ethics…
[Thanks to Robert Ambrogi for the news]
UPDATE: Shortly after this was posted, I learned that another bar association has an app for ethics: the Alabama Bar, which launched the first organized code of professional responsibility that was adopted by the American Bar Association in 1908.
I’m just waiting for all the not-very-original and supposedly “witty” comments about contradictions-in-terms, etc.
I think there are ethical attorneys. Such as my grandfather and father, neither of whom died wealthy, though well-respected in their communities.
And all the out-of-context quotes of Shakespeare’s “…let’s kill all the lawyers.” Dick the Butcher wanted to kill the lawyers because they were the first line of defense against dictatorial rulers.
So, have at it, Ignoramuses (Ignorami?)