Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Jan. 26, 2024
Effective and ethical witness preparation
Failing to adequately prepare a witness could itself constitute an ethical violation. The problem is when in preparing a witness, a lawyer steps over the line of ethically permissible conduct.
You have a good case ... if your witnesses testify as expected, that is. If you are working with reluctant witnesses, you want to encourage transparency, openness, and of course truthfulness. Competent lawyering requires preparing your case, including your witness testimony. But ethically, when it comes to witness preparation, can there be too much of a good thing?
According to a new ABA Ethics opinion (as well as common sense), the answe...
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