In this post, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice talks about how zealous advocacy will no longer be necessary in New York starting on April 1, 2009. Arizona attorneys haven’t had to zealously advocate for their clients for years. However, most criminal defense attorneys still promise in their fee agreements that they will zealously represent their clients, and there are still quite a few zealous advocates out there. I doubt that changing the language of our ethics rules had much of an effect. Interestingly, at least one Justice on the Supreme Court of Arizona disagrees. Every Arizona attorney is required to take a professionalism course. When I took the course, we watched a video of Chief Justice Ruth McGregor talking about the need to increase civility in … Read entire article »