Section 1.102(b) of the uniform act states the primary objectives, the “underlying purposes and policies” of this model legislation:

Upon the enactment of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, published ethical norms will for the first time give explicit consideration to the lawyer's behavior in the process of negotiation. Rules 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 deal with negotiation. Although the Canons, the interpretations of the Canons, and the Disciplinary Rules and Ethical Considerations gave tangential consideration to negotiating, none of the Disciplinary Rules or Ethical Considerations explicitly considered negotiation apart from the process of litigation or counseling. The mere recognition of negotiation as a separate process worthy of unique rules is a large step. The purpose of this paper is to address the general question of truthfulness as that question is faced in Rule 4.2.

Regulating lawyers is a three-part process. Rules must be formulated, they must be interpreted, and they must be enforced. Although those who formulate rules cannot be held responsible for their interpretation and enforcement, they can and should bring to their work an appreciation of the problems experienced in interpreting and enforcing earlier rules. One way to evaluate the proposed Model Rules of Professional Conduct is to ask whether they are properly responsive to problems that have arisen in interpreting and enforcing the Code of Professional Responsibility. That is the standard against which the Model Rules will be measured in this review. No effort, however, will be made to canvass all the problems that have been identified under the Code.

This study is of the application of the Ohio Landlord and Tenant Act of 1974 in Cleveland to determine, within the limits of a brief exploratory study, how landlords and tenants have used the provisions of the act and the influence the act has had on the courts, the legal profession, and other institutions.

The American Bar Association's Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards has proposed the replacement of the existing Code of Professional Responsibility with its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The public discussion of the Model Rules has focused largely on specific provisions, such as the proposed requirement that lawyers disclose clients' confidences in some circumstances and the exhortation that all lawyers engage in pro bono activity. Another proposed change, however, would at least on its face seem to be more significant for the future of the bar's professional standards and its self-concept than for the resolution of particular professional dilemmas. That change is the proposed elimination of about half the current Code of Professional Responsibility: those provisions included under the rubric “Ethical Considerations.”

Attorney involvement in client perjury is a restive issue that does not admit of easy resolution. Many other issues are addressed by the Kutak Commission in its proposed revision of the American Bar Association's recommended rules of attorney conduct. But few have raised such a spirited professional and public debate as the Commission's broad proposal for required disclosure of client dishonesty. Whistle blowing by counsel is mandated in some instances, permitted in the attorney's discretion in others. Counsel for parties in negotiation are carefully circumscribed in presenting misleading information to others. And the lawyer whose client commits known perjury on the witness stand is under an explicit obligation to correct the perjury. All of these rules are part of the Commission's thematic development of a broad social dimension to the lawyer's work—a dimension that, in the Commission's view, requires more explicit recognition of the lawyer's obligations to third parties and to social institutions such as the courts to assist them in their work. The range of issues presented is very extensive, and the present review will deal only with the client perjury problem.

The intense debate surrounding the proposed Model Rules of Professional Conduct centers primarily on those provisions that permit, or require, the disclosure by lawyers of information that is presently shielded from production by Canon 4 of the Code of Professional Responsibility. Indeed, were it not for the disclosure provisions, which many critics decry as fundamentally altering the lawyer-client relationship, the proposed Model Rules might have generated widespread support, or perhaps indifference, from most segments of the bar.