Ethics Essay - Ethical situations involving paralegals are answered by using the Code of Professional Conduct

Situation #1 A legal assistant responds to an employment ad for a "legal researcher". The employer describes the research project and states the work will be supervised by John Jones, the lawyer for the employer. The legal assistant takes the job and completes the project, but in fact has never met or been supervised by John Jones. May the legal assistant ethically turn over the work product to the non-lawyer employer? Answer: Relating to the information …

…shall inform in the Attorney Grievance Commission." Furthermore, Rule 8.4, Misconduct, says that even attempting to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct would be considered misconduct and could impair the lawyer's career. Normally a legal situation can be extremely stressful to the client and withholding information or avoiding the matter all together is not in the best interests of the client. In addition, if enough time passes, it could harm or even destroy a client's case.