Researching Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility

 Bloomberg Law

The easiest way to find legal ethics materials on Bloomberg Law is to visit their Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Practice Center at this link. Note that you'll have to log in with your Bloomberg login and password before you can view these materials. In the Practice Center you'll find a curated selection of legal ethics-related resources, including the ABA/Bloomberg Law Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct, ABA and state legal ethics opinions, current news, and recommended secondary sources and practice guides.

If the Practice Center doesn't have what you need, you can expand your search by returning to the Bloomberg Law home page and clicking on the "Select Sources" link to the right of the search bar, then typing "ethics" or "conduct" in the keyword search box and selecting a source from the list. Bloomberg Law provides access to decisions by many state bar professional ethics advisory committees. Note that there is no easy way to narrow your search to all ethics materials - you must select one source at a time or browse through thousands of sources.

For search help, try this guide from the Indiana University at Bloomington School of Law.

 Westlaw

To find the full text of various model codes and books:

• From the main Westlaw menu, click on Secondary Sources.
• Scroll down to the By Topic area and click on Ethics & Professional Responsibility.
  • A wide variety of sources are provided in this topic, including the ABA Annotated Rules of Professional Conduct, the Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, Legal Ethics-The Lawyer’s Deskbook on Professional Responsibility, Ethical Standards in the Public Sector, and Law of Lawyer Advertising. Note that Westlaw does NOT have the ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct.
• To narrow or expand your search, you can select the type of publication to display from the Publication Type list on the left-hand side of the screen. Recommended types are Texts & Treatises, Restatements & Principles of the Law and Jurisprudence & Encyclopedias. Once you have made your selection, click on Apply Filters.​

To find case law or journal articles:

• From the main Westlaw menu, click on Key Numbers.
• Click the checkboxes for 46H: Attorneys and Legal Services AND 311H: Privileged Communications and Confidentiality.
• You can now click on the "View Headnotes" button near the top of the page, but you will get tens of  thousands of results - it's better to select a jurisdiction and/or enter some search terms before viewing your results.

For search help, visit Westlaw's searching guide pages here and here or try this guide from the Indiana University at Bloomington School of Law.

 Lexis Plus

Lexis Plus offers the full text of all the ABA Model Rules and codes. To find them, as well as any other legal ethics materials on Lexis:

• From the Practice Area or Industry box on the main Lexis Plus menu, click on Legal Ethics.
• Scroll down to the type of material you're interested in, then click on any of the links under that type. The Model Rules and Codes will be found under the Administrative Materials heading; just click on "All Legal Ethics Administrative Materials."

For search help, visit Lexis's help pages here or try this guide from the Indiana University at Bloomington School of Law.