Washington Lawyer - January/February 2022 - 10

FEATURE
the Integrity
of the Profession
Protecting
A CONVERSATION
ON LEGAL ETHICS
F
ifteen years ago, on August 1, 2006, the D.C.
Court of Appeals approved the most comprehensive
changes to the D.C. Rules of Professional
Conduct following proposed amendments
submitted by the D.C. Bar Board of Governors. The
revised D.C. Rules took effect on February 1, 2007.
Here, Washington Lawyer features a conversation
between former D.C. Bar presidents Jack Keeney Jr.,
who presided over the rules revision initiative from
2005 to 2006, and Myles Lynk, senior assistant
disciplinary counsel with the Office of Disciplinary
Counsel, about the legal ethics landscape, including
ethics challenges for attorneys then and now.
Keeney was a partner at Hogan & Hartson from 1985 to 2011 and cochaired
the firm's legal ethics committee. From 2000 to 2002 he taught
the mandatory course on legal ethics at American University Washington
College of Law. After leaving Hogan, Keeney joined the Legal Aid Society
of the District of Columbia, where he headed its Appellate Advocacy
Project. In 2015 he joined the Association of Zoos and Aquariums as
general counsel.
Lynk has a long history of service with the D.C. Bar: member of the Legal
Ethics Committee from 1987 to 1990, chair of the Clients' Security Fund
from 1989 to 1992, and president of the Bar from 1996 to 1997. Lynk
10 WASHINGTON LAWYER * JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
Former D.C. Bar presidents Myles Lynk (left) and Jack Keeney Jr.
served as pro bono consultant on legal ethics in the Office of the
Attorney General for the District of Columbia from 2016 to 2018.
An emeritus professor at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor
College of Law, Lynk specializes in legal ethics and professional responsibility
as well as civil procedure and corporate governance.
Here is a condensed version of their conversation, edited for brevity and
clarity.
Myles Lynk: Jack, please take us back to 2005. What led to the Bar's
consideration of amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct that
occupied so much of your time as D.C. Bar president? Why then?
Jack Keeney: In 2005, after many years of study, we had a report from
a Bar committee that came to the D.C. Bar Board of Governors recommending
substantial changes to the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.
The rules hadn't been [comprehensively] reviewed since they had been
adopted initially back in the 1990s, and the ABA had made significant
changes since then. So it was time to take a look at them again. Now, it's
important for everybody to remember that D.C. does not just adopt the
ABA Model Rules. D.C. looks at the ABA Rules, looks at its own experience,
and decides what rules best fit the practice of lawyers in D.C.
As a result, it's a little bit more challenging when a Bar committee of
experts recommends changes to the rules. We are not just going to
adopt the ABA Rules and . . . say, " This is what the experts say. Let's just
have a meeting and give it a stamp of approval. " No. What we wanted to
do . . . is go through each and every proposed change - which included
name changes, rule changes, changes to comments - and vote on
them individually. As you remember, the Bar's Board of Governors is a
unique organization. It represents all the facets of our vast community . . .
now well over 100,000 [members].
Images: Patrice Gilbert Photography
Washington Lawyer - January/February 2022

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