Ah! You’re from a squeal jurisdiction!” We had been talking ethics, and that’s how Roy Ginsburg, a law office management expert from Minnesota, referred to New Jersey a few years ago at a national meeting of CLE providers: a “squeal” jurisdiction. Roy was talking about our Rule of Professional Conduct 8.3, a clone of the Model RPC now adopted by most states, requiring lawyers to report the unethical behavior of our colleagues. What rankled Roy was that the failure to report an unethical colleague is itself a violation of an RPC, exposing to discipline any attorney who has guilty knowledge of another lawyer’s misconduct.
The rule is short, but not sweet. “A lawyer who knows that another lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate professional authority.” That authority is the Office of Attorney Ethics or its local arm, the District Ethics Committee.
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