But this thesis was well understood in certain contexts without formal game theory. Making this distinction provides some justification for trotting out the big technological guns of a game-theory model. At the end of the day, while Painter persuades that the repeated interaction between firm and agency lawyers may foster cooperation, I'm not sure that the explicit game theory served to illuminate the phenomenon. The duties should be tailored to the needs of the particular representation context. The parties should have a mechanism to contract around presumptive or default duties to allow even more tailoring.
Clarity is a primary value in creating enforceable ethical duties.
As a theoretical matter, these three dichotomous choices give rise to eight possible permutations. One way to frame my criticism is that I am not sure that Painter has sufficiently considered all of the individual permutations. It is initially hard to conceive of agencies engaging in ex ante negotiations over ethical duties, but Painter imaginatively begins to consider what such a world would look like. He might have spoken more about the mechanisms for contracting around default ethical duties. It also doesn't address whether government attorneys would be subject to contractible ethical duties.