Page 11 - Delaware Lawyer - Issue 2 - 2024

NOTES
1. American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct, avail- able at https://www.americanbar.org/ groups/professional_responsibility/pub- lications/model_rules_of_professional_ conduct/?login.
2. See, e.g., Connecticut Bar Association, Lawyers’ Principles of Professionalism, available at https://www.ctbar.org/docs/ default-source/resources/2014_0520_law- yers_principles.pdf?sfvrsn=a63f1713_2; New Jersey Commission on Professional- ism in the Law, Principles of Profession- alism for Lawyers and Judges, available
at https://www.njd.uscourts.gov/sites/ njd/files/PrinciplesOfProfessionalism. PDF; Virginia Bar Association, Principles of Professionalism for Virginia Lawyers, available at https://www.vba.org/page/ principles_professionalism; Washington State Courts, Fundamental Principles of Professional Conduct, available at https:// www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/pdf/ RPC/GA_RPC_FUNDAMENTAL%20 PRINCIPLES.pdf.
1. RESPONSIBLE CHOICE OF FORUM. Before choosing a forum, a lawyer should review with the client all al- ternatives, including alternate meth- ods of dispute resolution. A lawyer should not file or defend a suit or an administrative proceeding with- out as thorough a review of the facts and the law as is required to form a conviction that the complaint or re- sponse has merit.
2. PRE-TRIAL PROCEEDINGS. A lawyer should use pre-trial proce- dures, including discovery, solely to develop a case for settlement or trial and not to harass an opponent or delay a case. Whenever possible, stipulations and agreements should be made between counsel to reduce both the cost and the use of judicial time. Interrogatories and requests for documents should be carefully crafted to demand only relevant mat- ter, and responses should be timely, candid and not evasive. Good faith efforts should be made to resolve by agreement objections to matters contained in pleadings, discovery re-
quests and objections.
A lawyer should endeavor to sched-
ule pre-trial procedures so as to ac- commodate the schedules of all parties and attorneys involved. Agreements for reasonable extensions of time should not be withheld arbitrarily.
Only those depositions neces- sary to develop or preserve the facts should be taken. Questions and ob- jections at deposition should be re- stricted to conduct appropriate in the presence of a judge.
3. COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE COURT OR TRIBUNAL. A lawyer should speak and write respectfully in all communications with the Court. All papers filed in a proceeding should be as succinct as the complex- ity of the matter will allow. A lawyer should avoid ex parte communica- tions with the Court on pending mat- ters, except when permitted by law. Unless specifically authorized by law, a lawyer should not submit papers to the Court without serving copies of all papers upon opposing counsel in such a manner that opposing counsel
will receive them before or contem- poraneously with the submission to the Court.
4. SETTLEMENT. A lawyer should constantly evaluate the strength of a client’s legal position and keep the cli- ent advised. A lawyer should seek to settle any matter at any time that such course of action is determined to be consistent with the client’s best inter- est after considering the anticipated cost of continuing the proceeding and the lawyer’s good faith evaluation of the likely result.
5. APPEAL. A lawyer should take an appeal only if the lawyer believes in good faith that the Court has committed er- ror, or an appeal is otherwise required.
C.OUT OF STATE ASSOCIATE COUN- SEL. Before moving the admis- sion of a lawyer from another jurisdic- tion, a Delaware lawyer should make such inquiry as required to determine that the lawyer to be admitted is reputa- ble and competent and should furnish the candidate for admission with a
copy of these Principles.
ISSUE 2 2024 DELAWARE LAWYER 9