On Demand
Audio
Staying Within the Lines: Ethical Issues for Lawyers During a Crisis
Produced on April 06, 2020
Course Information
Course Description
“Desperate times call for desperate measures” is a saying attributed to the Greek physician Hippocrates, apparently derived from his Aphorism "For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable." The crisis we face globally and the challenges we face as lawyers individually have their roots in an extreme disease that has paralyzed the world. The current pandemic has no match in recent history, and we as a society do not have a roadmap on how to handle this unprecedented crisis.
As lawyers, however, we do have a GPS: the ABA Model Professional Rules of Conduct, and the Rules as adopted in the jurisdictions in which we practice. It is when times are tough that we have to make the most difficult decisions. It is during these times that we are tested. Abiding by the rules is essential to staying within the lines of appropriate professional conduct and getting through this crisis with our ethical obligations and our professionalism intact.
This program, taught by Fran Griesing, the founder and managing member of Griesing Law, LLC, will help attorneys understand their ethical obligations in a crisis, including how to stay competitive in a rapidly changing legal landscape, appropriate supervision of junior lawyers and professional staff when working remotely, meeting deadlines and communicating effectively with clients, and why “Desperate times call for desperate measures” is not a principle to follow in a legal emergency.Learning Objectives:
- Identify the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other guidelines that are implicated by the legal practice during a crisis
- Review the changing status of government orders on practicing law
- Discuss the duty to remain competitive amid the challenges of constantly evolving law and legal issues
- Avoid conflicts of interest
- Protect your colleagues from exclusion and bias
- Maintain civility and respect for others
Credit Information
Faculty
Francine Griesing
Griesing Law, LLC
Francine Friedman Griesing is the founder and Managing Member of Griesing Law, LLC, a women-owned and operated law firm based in Philadelphia with satellite offices in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New York, and Cincinnati. Fran is a valued, strategic advisor to top executives and general counsel at the region’s and country’s largest corporations and institutions. Fran has over thirty five years of experience representing clients in complex business transactions, high stakes litigation and alternate dispute resolution matters. Her clients include public and closely-held companies, not-for-profit organizations, government entities and executives. After practicing at AmLaw 100 firms and as Litigation Chair for the City of Philadelphia, Fran founded Griesing Law so women could reach their potential in the male-dominated legal field.
Fran has been recognized by Chambers and Partners USA, Best Lawyers in America, Client Choice Guide USA, and Pennsylvania Super Lawyers for her expertise in commercial litigation and employment law. She has also been acknowledged as one of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Influencers of Law Lifetime Achievers and Diversity & Inclusion Lifetime Achievers, Philadelphia Business Journal’s Best of the Bar, The Legal Intelligencer’s Women of the Year, Ms. JD’s Sharing Her Passion Honoree, ABA Women in Litigation Joint CLE Conference Women Who Inspire Us;and Pennsylvania Super Lawyers’ Top 50 Women Lawyers and is the recipient of the Philadelphia Bar Education Center’s Excellence in Legal Education Award and the American Bar Association’s Excellence in Legal Writing Award.
Fran is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded Bossible, a marketing and business development consultancy that helps entrepreneurs, professionals, small businesses and diverse businesses build and execute marketing plans that amplify them as thought leaders in their industries, and GriesingMazzeo Leadership, a training and human resources advisor for small, middle market, women and diverse owned businesses and professionals. She is highly regarded as a trailblazing entrepreneur, selected by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and Bank of America as the 2018 Woman Business Owner of the Year and by The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia as the 2018 Small Business Person of the Year. She also received the Women’s Business Enterprise Center East WBE Leadership Award. She has been included in Women’s Enterprise Magazine’s Top WBE CEOs, Philly Biz’s Executives of the Year, Enterprising Women Magazine’s Enterprising Women of the Year, Philadelphia Business Journal’s Women of Distinction, Business Philadelphia’s Women to Watch and one of the Governor of Pennsylvania’s Best 50 Women in Business.
Fran is a highly sought speaker and writer and is also featured in “The Road to Independence, 101 Women’s Journeys to Starting Their Own Firms”, published by the American Bar Association. She has taught Business Law, Public Employment Law and Advocacy Skills at Temple University's Beasley School of Law and Fox School of Business & Management and has been a guest lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Thomas Kline School of Law at Drexel University. Fran is an honors graduate of Binghamton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Review.
Reviews
Great summary of how attorney obligations are impacted by Covid-19 issues.
Excellent,
She was excellent!!
very helpful guidelines for these difficult times
I appreciated the practical advice and also the admonition that we should not be seeking to take advantage during this time.
VERY TIMELY AND PRACTICAL
Excellent, practical, informative presentation
Very timely and relevant.
Good program
Great speaker!
Excellent presentation. The instructor thoroughly knew the subject matter.
Very good that she touched on "unrecognized" internal biases.
I JUST LOVE THE #RBG REFERENCE! AGAIN, GREAT AND RELEVANT INFORMATION
good program and timely; thank you
Incredibly thoughtful, practical and timely. I would recommend this course to every member of the Bar and I’m considering requiring my direct reports to watch it. Very well done!
Excellent course. Teacher was well versed.
excellent
This was a great presentation. High marks for the presenter!
Excellent topic, excellent coverage.
excellent course; well presented and timely
good speaker
Presentation started out a bit slow but was well organized and provided a lot of information in the time allotted
Excellent timely and practical information
The presenter moved quickly and efficiently through the material. I found her check list to be helpful.
good content
Presenter did a good job of covering many basic ethical mandates and best practices in a time of emergency.
good content
Extremely helpful
Very timely course. Valuable information for the practitioner. Thanks
Thanks!
Exce;;ent course - material covered was dense and complicated but very well presented.
Presenter was excellent
timely information
Not the most exciting topic. Speaker did a very nice job with it.
Relevant and informative.
Very relevant for right now.
Ms. Griesing gave the best ethics presentation that I have ever viewed. Her comments and materials were concise, clear, and included specific practice pointers.
Very well thought out and timely
I was very impressed with the speaker! She gave numerous examples of problems and potential solutions which were very helpful.
A really fine ethics course. Well done to the attorney. Lawline's got this CLE thing dialed in!
Very helpful. The conversational style, using reality based examples to illustrate various principles was very effective.
Firm and Sole Practioners, which each of us may come to employ in the future.
Fantastic presentation. It crystallized many of the issues we (lawyers) face in running our practices during COVID.
This was both timely and well presented!
Very timely, very helpful. Thank you.
Excellent knowledgeable presenter
It was a good overview of the rules and how to abide by them during this current pandemic.
This program was excellent!!
This is one of the best courses I've completed in my 10 years of doing CLEs!
excellent presentation
So good! Thank you.
Very timely and thought provoking.
Thank you, gave me information on areas I did not think about due to the changes/upheaval of Covid-19.
Very nice program.
Good course.
Timely subject matter.
Great course! The speaker was excellent and I really appreciated her focus on empathy and civility.
Top rate instructor, top rate course content
I enjoyed the course. Timely and interesting.
First rate! Thanks!!
She was so organized!
Timely, useful, and practical information and advice. Very engaging presentation.
A very practical approach to ethics in the current environment.
I want her to be my lawyer!
Timely course presentation speaker was clear precise and knowledgeable
thanks very much for important and timely information, great presenter, definitely knew the content well, thanks again
Wonderful program, with excellent advice for these difficult times. Thank you for putting out this informative program.
Excellent program. Very informative and engaging presenter.
Wonderful instructor
excellent
Excellent presentation of a timely topic.
excellent and engaging!
Clear and focused.
Great information; glad to see another attorney who graduated from law school in 1981 provide such helpful information.
Presenter was excellent. Topic was very appropriate for the times.
One of the best classes I have taken. Actually watched twice.
Timely
Well done! Information was concise,, right on point and well delivered. A very timely topic which was well covered given the limited time available.
Good information.
Excellent overview
Very Well thought out!
Very timely and helpful.
Very effective and worthwhile presentation.
thanks for using the headset. The audio was much better than most of the CLE recordings made during this COVID-19 lockdown
Excellent rundown of essentials and lots that I hadn't thought about. Thank you!
Speaker was excellent
This course may very well qualify as the best Lawline course I’ve taken. Fabulous presenter!
Very relevant
Great course - highly recommend!
Very timely valuable advice presented perfectly.
Very timely.
Great presentation. Thank you.
Particularly well prepared presenter
Thank you
great presenter
Sobering, thoughtful, helpful course for the times.
Ms. Griesing is very knowledgeable about the variety of unforeseen factors that can impact a lawyer. Thoroughly relevant to the great responsibilities we lawyers face.
Very timely course. Well structured and informative too.
Interesting and timely topic
I thoroughly enjoyed this CLE course. I thought Francine provided lots of sound advice that can be put into use during this period. I particularly liked her cautionary advice to "be kind."
Good. Thorough.
Great information during these extraordinary times, thank you.
Faculty was incredibly knowledgable. I had issues with the video, but the audio worked fine. Thanks.
Incredibly knowledgeable presenter—great practical insights
Very timely and informative!
timely, interesting
Thank you!
Good program
Very well spoken practitioner
Effective presenter
Learned several items that I never thought of before.
Exceptional speaker.
Speaker was very knowledgeable and effective
Very good program. Great presenting style and content. Provided sufficient detail to be useful without getting to caught up on single issues
Listened attentively to all the good pointers.
Excellent program!
Excellent presentation.
Great talk!
Excellent course and speaker!
Excellent as it relates to understanding ethics generally. I encourage including more specifics about the implications of COVID-19 and how general considerations are to be applied.
Thorough and coherent presentation. Timely topic. Well done.
This class was very informative and discussed matters related to the emergency that I had not considered but will now implement. Thank you!
Excellent speaker providing very timely materials and practical advice.
Very timely under the circumstances that we face today.
Presenter was exceptionally effective. The audio delivery was quite good.
She did a great job. Most of it was speculation, but really this is a new situation for everyone, so it's hard to give many specifics and I get that.
Good presentation by a knowledgeable instructor
Very timely info.
She was very clear.
Excellent content.
Amazingly thorough and well-prepared. A great hour
Excellent speaker.
Very timely and interesting
This raises some every interesting issues for the NYC area and living in one jurisdiction and prating in another.
Thank you for such a relevant and informative CLE.
Another excellent instructor!
Timely topic with practical examples and applications.
Super good refresher in the midst of all that we have to do.
Great job!!!!
Very informative, great CLE! Thank you!
Great job, Francine.
Very good.
Timely and practical
Very Informative
Excellent presentation and guide for the Ethical practice of law during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
informative and kept my attention
thanks
Excellent program.
It was a timely and well presented ethics topic.
Great program Great program
excellent and concise program. Speaker was very knowledgeable and guidance was practical.
Very timely
Really timely, organized, well-delivered. Thank you!
excellent program. valuable information.
Well done.
The course provided a decent overview and reminder of ethical responsibilities for lawyers.
Lots of very practical advice.
Speaker was terrific-wish she was in my jurisdiction. Thank you.
Thank you...well done.
very good presentation
timely
This lecturer was really, really good.
Great info!
Helpful, informative, interesting, practical, and timely program delivered by a knowledgeable and experienced presenter.
Very timely course. Well presented.
Thorough presentation, thank you.