Bruce Green was quoted in a Reuters article about President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s claims that he secretly taped President Trump discussing payment to a former Playboy model.
While the American Bar Association said in 2001 it was not necessarily unethical for a lawyer to secretly record conversations with a client, Fordham University School of Law Professor Bruce Green said New York disciplinary authorities could take a more restrictive view of such recording unless extraordinary circumstances existed.
Such circumstances might include preventing harm to others or the lawyer’s need to establish his own defense to the client’s conduct.
Green said Cohen was unlikely to raise his need to defend himself to avoid an ethics charge “because if Trump and Cohen were committing crimes together, and that’s why Cohen recorded their calls, then Cohen has bigger disciplinary problems.”
The Reuters story was picked up by Sabroek News and CNews24.