Research Links

Alice McCreary

Compiler

Ethics

General

Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Attorney Search

Search for licensed Pennsylvania attorneys and gain information about an attorney such as attorney's status or whether an attorney has been subjected to public discipline and/or disability.

Findlaw: Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Links to rules, decisions, journals, newsletters, articles, and other websites.

Legal Ethics Discussion List

Washburn University School of Law Library

Restricted to lawyers, law professors, and law students.

LegalEthics.com

Ethics information searchable by practice area and topic.

National Organization of Bar Counsel

Nonprofit organization whose members enforce ethical rules. Provides links to summaries of cases on attorney disciplinary matters, a NOBC membership directory, and online forum for NOBC members, and links to other ethics sites.

Rules and Opinions

ABA Center for Professional Responsibility

Site features headnote summaries of recent ABA Ethics Opinions, the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and ETHICSearch Research Service.

American Legal Ethics Library

Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School

Contains the rules setting standards for the professional conduct of lawyers as well as commentary on the law governing lawyers. Note: as of June 2012 this site is no longer being updated.

Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Rules Page

Contains links to the PA Rules of Professional Conduct, the Ethics 2000 Amendments, the PA Continuing Legal Education rules, and more.

Model Rules of Professional Conduct

Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.

Provides access to both the version of the Model Rules adopted by the ABA in February 5, 2002, in response to the recommendations of the Ethics 2000 Commission (the "Current Version"), and the prior version of the Model Rules (the "Pre-2002" version). Both versions link to one another.

Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct

The rules can be found in Title 204, Chapter 81 of the Pennsylvania Code.

Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission

Provides access to rulings, advices, and opinions from 1979 to present.

Philadelphia Bar Association Ethics Opinions

Browse or search the most frequently-requested opinions, from 1987 to present.

Smart Litigator Pennsylvania

ALM Media Properties, LLC

Subscription-based site with access to state and federal cases and a comprehensive collection of Pennsylvania District and County cases. Also contains Pennsylvania rules, verdicts and settlements, judges’ profiles, news and analysis from The Legal Intelligencer, and more. Offers a free trial. Formerly Palawlibrary.

Metadata

Metadata is data about data. It describes how, when, and by whom a document was created. Distributing documents containing metadata may violate PA Rule 1.6 if it violates a client's confidentiality. ABA Ethics Opinion 06-442 (August 5, 2006) states that "The Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not contain any specific prohibition against a lawyer's reviewing and using embedded information in electronic documents, whether received from opposing counsel, an adverse party, or an agent of an adverse party." Many individual state bar associations have also issued ethics opinions concerning metadata. However, according to the ABA, "there is no clear consensus on the major metadata issues."

Appligent Redax

Appligent Document Solutions

Completely removes text and graphics from a PDF file. Hacking the PDF cannot reveal properly redacted information. Requires an existing installation of Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional 6, 7, 8, or 9.

Doc Scrubber

Javacool Software

Free metadata scrubber that works with MS Word documents in the classic .DOC format used in Word 97, 2000, XP, 2003. (Does not currently support the new .DOCX format used by Word 2010). Also allows you to scrub multiple documents at a time.

How to Minimize Metadata in Word 2003

Some metadata in MS Word is generated automatically and is available via File - Properties. Other metadata can be manually added via the Track Changes feature.

iScrub

Esquire Innovations, Inc.

Metadata removal and management utility for Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and Power Point) documents and Adobe Acrobat PDF files.

Metadata- What Is It and What Are My Ethical Duties?

LLRX.com

Excellent overview of metadata issues, along with links to relevant ethics opinions, and tips for guarding against metadata disasters.

Metadata Assistant

Payne Group

Popular metadata scrubber for MS Office documents.

Minimizing Metadata in WordPerfect 12 Documents

White paper that covers the procedures for removing comments, hidden text, document revision annotations, and more.

Remove Hidden Data and Personal Information from MS Office 2007 Documents

Explains how the Document Inspector in Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 can help you find and remove hidden data and personal information in your Office documents.

Saving WordPerfect Files Without Metadata

Discusses steps you can take to save WordPerfect documents without hidden data, including version X3's Save Without Metadata feature.

Workshare Protect

Workshare, Inc.

Popular metadata scrubber for MS Office documents.