Opinion ID: 1925132
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Zealousness Within Boundaries

Text: All members of the Delaware Bar are officers of the Court. Although a lawyer has a duty to his or her client, each Delaware lawyer has sworn an oath to practice with all good fidelity as well to the Court as to the client. This responsibility to the Court takes precedence over the interests of the client because officers of the Court are obligated to represent these clients zealously within the bounds of both the positive law and the rules of ethics. [21] As officers of the court, lawyers are an integral part of the institutional administration of justice. Adherence to the rule of law keeps America free. Public respect for the rule of law requires the public's trust and confidence that our legal system is administered fairly not only by judges but also by officers of the court. Civil behavior towards the tribunal and opposing counsel does not compromise an attorney's efforts to diligently and zealously represent his or her clients. [22] Indeed, it is a mark of professionalism, not weakness, for a lawyer zealously and firmly to protect and pursue a client's legitimate interests by a professional, courteous, and civil attitude toward all persons involved in the litigation process. [23] This Court has frequently quoted the following remarks of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: I believe that the justice system cannot function effectively when the professionals charged with administering it cannot even be polite to one another. Stress and frustration drive down productivity and make the process more time-consuming and expensive. Many of the best people get driven away from the field. The profession and the system itself lose esteem in the public's eyes.       In my view, incivility disserves the client because it wastes time and energy-time that is billed to the client at hundreds of dollars an hour, and energy that is better spent working on the case than working over the opponent. [24] Justice Brent Dickson of the Indiana Supreme Court has appropriately observed that civil law is not an oxymoron. [25] In this case, the Board struggled with where to draw the line between conduct that was merely unprofessional and conduct that was unethical. As a result, the Board found that although the Respondent's briefs were obnoxious and used unnecessary invective and rhetoric, there were no ethical violations. In this regard, the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision in In re Vincenti [26] is instructive: Under some circumstances it might be difficult to determine precisely the point at which forceful, aggressive trial advocacy crosses the line into the forbidden territory of an ethical violation. But no matter where in the spectrum of courtroom behavior we would draw that line, no matter how indulgent our view of acceptable professional conduct might be, it is inconceivable that the instances of respondent's demeanor that we are called upon to review in these proceedings could ever be countenanced. [27] As this Court stated more than fifteen years ago, [s]imply put, insulting conduct toward opposing counsel, and disparaging a court's integrity are unacceptable by any standard. [28] Zealous advocacy never requires disruptive, disrespectful, degrading or disparaging rhetoric. The use of such rhetoric crosses the line from acceptable forceful advocacy into unethical conduct that violates the Delaware Lawyers' Rules of Professional Conduct. Lawyers are not free, like loose cannons, to fire at will upon any target of opportunity which appears on the legal landscape. The practice of law is not and cannot be a free fire zone. [29] The leading treatise on legal ethics states that Part 3 of the Model Rules stands as a stern reminder that it is simply not the case that `anything goes' once a matter reaches a courtroom or other tribunal; even hardball is played according to an exacting set of rules. [30] During his confirmation hearing, the Chief Justice of the United States, John G. Roberts, Jr., also used a baseball analogy: Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. [31] Like umpires, judges must decide which hits by an advocate are fair and which hard hits by an advocate are foul. In this case, the hits in the briefs filed by the Respondent were not only foul but were so far beyond the boundaries of propriety that they were unethical.