Help us generate a list of topics for "Top Legal Ethics Stories of the Decade" (and then we'll run a Condorcet poll)

In the comments to this year's list of top legal ethics stories, a reader asked for a list of the decade's top stories.  That gives me a perfect opportunity to run a Condorcet poll.  First we need to generate the topics.  Below the fold is a list I've generated.  But I need your suggestions of what else might be included in the final poll.  Please suggest anything that strikes you as noteworthy in the field over the past decade.  At some point soon, I will set up the poll and run it.  Thanks.

OLC memos and lawyering within the Bush administration relating to torture.

Lawyers for the detainees fight on, despite criticism (e.g., Major Mori and the "Cully Stimson affair")

The biglaw “bubble burst” of 2008-2010.

The dotcom bubble burst of 2000-01.

The bimodal first year salary bubble.

Rise of empirical studies of legal profession

Lawyer use of social websites

Federal prosecutions “over the line” (e.g., the KPMG-Stein case; the prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens, etc.)

Jenkins & Gilchrist tax opinion scandal & subsequent collapse

Recusals and non-recusals at the US Supreme Court (e.g., the "duck hunting" non-recusal)

Caperton v. Massey

 Developments in ineffective assistance of counsel doctrine

Ethics 2000 Amendments

Sarbanes-Oxley and the SEC's revised regulation of lawyers

The increasingly globalized legal profession

Detainees fight for access to US courts

Lynne Stewart conviction

ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct revised

The Restatement (Third), Law Governing Lawyers

General counsel criminally charged in backdating and market collapse scandals

Dickie Scruggs

Bill Lerach

Silicosis tort cases held "fraudulent"

Clementi report in UK reforms the legal profession there

Publicly owned Australian law firm

Outsourcing of legal work

Lawyer charged in HP pretexting scandal

New York overhauls ethics rules; adopts Model Rules

California nears adoption of Model Rules

The firing of AUSA’s scandal

Civil Gideon movement

Charles Hood scandal

MR 1.10 amendment 

Michael Nifong and the prosecution of the Duke lacrosse players

Holder/Thompson/McNulty memos and the DOJ's policies regarding privilege

Metadata

Pakistani lawyers fight for rule of law

Qualcomm v. Broadcom

Dreier law firm scandal 

Kwame Kilpatrick scandal

Controversy surrounding “Super Lawyers”

Increasing size of the largest 200 firms.  

Comments

[Andrew Perlman]

John,

It's a great list. How about the trend away from the billable hour? Also, I assume your list includes all of your top ten stories from the last several years?

Try creating the poll and leave people the option to write-in another story. I'm curious to see the results!

[Monroe Freedman]

I think the most important development -- addressing the most wide-spread and serious issue of lawyers' ethics -- is the substantial increase in refusals by public defenders and other court-appointed lawyers in criminal cases to accept appointments when to do so would violate ethical rules relating to competence, conflict of interest, and dishonesty, as well as the constitutional rights of their clients.

[Andrew Perlman]

Another issue: underfunded public defender offices and the effect on effective assistance of counsel. (You mention ineffective assistance of counsel doctrine, but the funding of PDs is a little different.)

[John Steele]

Those are two good suggestions, thanks. Andy, do you think we'd get more voting participation in this "dead week" or by waiting until the new year?

[Monroe Freedman]

Andy,

The underfunding and the ineffective assistance aren't new. They have been going on since Gideon was decided. The important development is the beginning of a rebellion by the court-appointed lawyers.

[Andrew Perlman]

Fair point, Monroe. I agree. That said, have case loads gotten worse in the last 10-20 years? My sense is that they have, but perhaps that's not accurate.

[Monroe Freedman]

See Justice Denied:America's Continuing Neglect of Our Constitutional Right to Counsel, esp. Ch. 2A, pp. 50ff. ("The Need for Reform is Decades Old").

The publication of this Report in 2009 by the National Right to Counsel Committee, and sponsored by The Constitution Project and NLADA, is itself a major development in lawyers' ethics, both this year and in the past decade. It's available at www.constitutionproject.org and at www.nlada.org.

Of particular importance are Chs. 3 & 4, which detail methods of achieving reform, and Ch. 5, which provides recommendations and commentary. Recommendation 14 reads: "Defense attorneys and defender programs should refuse to compromise their ethical duties in the face of political and systemic pressures that undermine the competence of their representation.... Defense attorneys and defender programs should, therefore, refuse to continue representation or accept new cases for representation when faced with excessive workloads that will lead to a breach of their professional obligations."

I hope that all teachers of professional responsibility are devoting class time to this critical issue.

[Paul J. Burgoyne]

I know this is not really helpful, and is an issue which is probably decide by practice if not reality, but 2009 is NOT the end of the "decade." This decade ends on December 31, 2010.

[John Steele]

Paul,

Thanks for commenting.

I'm aware of that debate, but it was a reader who requested the list and who am I to disappoint a reader? Btw, counting decades as starting with the zero year and ending with the "9" year is common place. Random House (via Dictionary.com) defines decade as: “A period of ten years beginning with a year whose last digit is zero: the decade of the 1980s.”

Now, what would you put on that list (even if you would start on January 1, 2001)?

[Paul J. Burgoyne]

The ramifications of the ongoing juducial misconduct matters in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

[John Steele]

Paul,

Yes, thanks, that's a "must" for the list.

[Matt Christensen]

John,

I may have missed it somewhere on the list, but how about the client confidentiality rules and the disclosure of evidence? I'm thinking specifically of the Alton Logan and buried bodies cases that came to light this decade.