Fordham Law Professor Bruce Green, director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, shares his views with Reuterss on lawyers and publicity tactics in high-profile trials and legal disputes.
Under the American Bar Association’s Model Rule 3.6, opens new tab, lawyers are obliged to refrain from out-of-court public statements that are likely to have “a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding.” But as legal ethics expert Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham University Law School, points out, it’s “not a gag order.”While judges no doubt prefer that lawyers try their cases inside the courtroom, the U.S. Supreme Court has also recognized “legitimate reasons” to advocate in the media, such as protecting a client’s reputation, Green told me.Judges may “huff and puff” about publicity tactics, Green said, but there are “very few cases where lawyers actually get sanctioned.”
Read “Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni and the court of public opinion” on Reuters.