|
Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
Encouraging ethical conduct and professional responsibility in legal practice is essential for strengthening the rule of law in Mexico. Unfortunately, however, a deep-seated culture of professional legal ethics is absent and few oversight mechanisms exist to monitor and sanction unethical behavior. At the same time, because practicing attorneys and judges need not belong to bar associations, they are exempt from the compulsory power of honor codes to discourage illicit conduct. And when bar associations reprimand members, they lack the enforcement capabilities to make consequential penalties stick. Moreover, because prospective litigators are neither required to pass a professional exam nor hold a graduate-level degree to practice law, they are not tested on or exposed to those modern legal ethics precepts that can improve the rule of law in the country.
Working to instill a robust culture of professional legal ethics in Mexico, the Justice in Mexico Project hosts various events on the issue and provides a forum for the dissemination and sharing of ideas related to the subject. Among the recent events held dealing with legal ethics and professionalism in Mexico were the “Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico / Reforma de la Justicia en México” conference Sept. 21-22, 2006, in Mexico City and the “Roundtable on Legal Training and Practice in Mexico / Profesionalism en el Ejercicio y Enseñanza del Derecho en México” July 28, 2006, also in Mexico City.
The Justice in Mexico Project will continue its work on legal ethics issues in the coming year. The Project will host a four-part seminar series entitled “Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Mexico” at the University of San Diego in 2007 and 2008. Generously funded by the Tinker Foundation, the seminar series will invite experts from Spain, Chile, the United States, and Mexico to speak on legal ethics and professional responsibility vis-à-vis these countries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Ethics and Professionalism in Comparative Perspective: the Case of the United States.
Video
Watch video clip (in English) using windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in English) using windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Watch video clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Audio
Download Presentation directly:
English (24.2 MB)
Spanish (24.2 MB)
Download Question and Answer Session directly:
English (7.06 MB)
Spanish (7.07 MB)
Transcripts:
English [ PDF (117.71 KB)]
Español [ PDF (112.87 KB)]
Speaker:
Fred Zacharias
Herzog Research Professor
University of San Diego School of Law
November 5, 2007
San Diego, CA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Ethics and Professionalism in Comparative Perspective: the Case of Spain.
Video
Watch video clip (in English) using Windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in English) using Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Watch video clip (in Spanish) using Windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in Spanish) using Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Audio
Download Presentation directly:
English (23.6 MB)
Spanish (23.9 MB)
Download Question and Answer Session directly:
English (20.6 MB)
Spanish (20.6 MB)
Transcripts:
English [ PDF (128.63 KB)]
Español [ PDF (151.81 KB)]
Speaker:
Rafael del Rosal García
Letrado Jefe del Departamento de Deontología Profesional del
Colegio de Abogados de Madrid
September 20, 2007
México, DF, MÉXICO
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Ethics and Professionalism in Comparative Perspective: the Case of Argentina.
Video
Watch video clip (in English) using Windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in English) using Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Watch video clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Audio
Download Presentation directly:
English (32.2 MB)
Spanish (30.5 MB)
Download Question and Answer Session directly:
English (7.33 MB)
Spanish (7.86 MB)
Transcripts:
English [ PDF (127.53 KB)]
Español [ PDF (132.23 KB)]
Speaker:
Rodolfo Luis Vigo
Former Minister, Supreme Court of Santa Fe, Argentina
Executive Secretary, Iberian-American Commission for Judicial Ethics
September 27, 2007
Aguascalientes, AGS, MÉXICO
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Ethics and Professionalism in Comparative Perspective: the Case of Chile.
Video
Watch video clip (in English) using Windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in English) using Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Watch video clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Audio
Download Presentation directly:
English (30.7 MB)
Spanish (31.0 MB)
Download Question and Answer Session directly:
English (9.22 MB)
Spanish (9.48 MB)
Transcripts:
English [ PDF (118.23 KB)]
Español [ PDF (128.25 KB)]
Speaker:
Lic. Claudio Rafael Pavlic Véliz
Regional Public Defender
Southern Metropolitan Region, Santiago Chile
May 9, 2007
Mexicali, B.C., MÉXICO
Key Discussion Points:
- The importance of industry self-regulation as a necessary dimension of any ethical framework, lest imposition of inefficient external regulations
- The need for effective ethical guideposts that enable resolution of dilemmas that pit two contradictory ethical arguments, i.e. the need to maintain client confidentiality vs. the need to serve justice for the whole community
- Mandatory bar membership and effective sanctioning mechanisms for delinquent legal practitioners
- What to do about professional conflicts of interest
- The codification of professional responsibilities to inhibit "personal" conceptions of justice
- Ethical dilemmas faced by public defenders, especially as regard representation of multiple clients charged for single crime
- The history of legal ethics standards and professionalism in Chile
- Resources for legal services users to file complaints regarding professional malpractice
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Ethics and Professionalism in Comparative Perspective: the Case of Mexico.
Video
Watch video clip (in English) using windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in English) using windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Watch video clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Watch Q&A clip (in Spanish) using windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is required to open this document. Click this link to download.
Audio
Download Presentation directly:
English (29.2 MB)
Spanish (20.2 MB)
Download Question and Answer Session directly:
English (8.34 MB)
Spanish (8.45 MB)
Podcast. Download this podcast to your itune or ipod
Transcripts:
English [ PDF (130.60 KB)]
Español [ PDF (118.96 KB)]
Speaker:
Justice José Ramón Cossío Díaz
Mexican Supreme Court
September 21, 2006
Mexico City, MEXICO
Key Discussion Points:
- The introduction of obligatory bar membership in Mexico.
- The constitutionality of obligatory bar membership. The question of mandatory membership appears possibly open to judicial interpretation.
- Challenges associated with the enforcement of legal ethics honor codes.
- Ethical conflicts of interest. Federal legislators may be in conflict of interest if they are also practicing attorneys and/or litigators.
- The history of legal ethics honor codes and legal professional associations in Mexico.
- The Mexican criminal justice reform movement. Reformers would be well served by promoting a grand, overarching plan rather than push for narrow, individual reforms, such as oral arguments in court proceedings.
Over the next two years, the Justice in Mexico Project also will continue to produce original reports related to legal ethics, function as a distribution point for related academic research, and create a forum where interested parties from academia, the legal community, and government may exchange ideas to help instill a culture of professional legal ethics in Mexico.
|
