ABA: no more 'harmful' thoughts

New ethics rules announced by the American Bar Association are being denounced as Orwellian-like for their attempt to limit and punish free speech. 

The rules fall under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and now include a "speech code," writer and attorney David French warned in a story at National Review Online.

The new rules, which prohibit "harmful" verbal conduct, must be adopted by state-level bar associations.

Cleve Doty, legal counsel at First Liberty Institute, tells OneNewsNow that the new rules would punish attorneys who are discussing hot-button issues even in private, such as a dinner conversation, if someone if offended by the topic or the point of view.

Naming topics such as same-sex marriage, religion, and immigration, "any of those issues is now potentially subject to bar discipline and removal from the profession if you're an attorney," Doty warns.

UCLA law professor Eugen Volokh makes a similar warning in a Washington Post story. Offending a fellow attorney with liberal views at a bar association dinner could lead to punishment, he suggests.

"You’ve engaged in 'verbal . . . conduct' that the bar may see as 'manifest[ing] bias or prejudice' and thus as 'harmful,'" Volokh warns, quoting directly from the ABA rules. 

A second scenario the professor envisions is a debate in which attorneys argue opposing views as part of their Continuing Legal Education, or CLE.

If an attorney presents a view about immigration law that "manifests bias or prejudice" toward Muslims, that attorney could be punished under the ABA rules, Volokh warns.  

Doty says the speech-restricting code is dangerous for an attorney because it could lead to an ethics complaint that the lawyer must then fight. 

"As an attorney, even if you win, it still costs time and money to fight and thousands of dollars to hire counsel and fight these ethics complaints, even the specious ethics complaints," he says. "And so what it really does is shut everyone down from saying anything that might be controversial for advocating for your clients vigorously or even selecting the clients."