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, organized on a state by state basis.

• 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.

• palawlibrary.com
  Subscription site containing Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unreported and reported opinions and current Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct. Site offers a 14-day trial.

• 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-present.

• Philadelphia Bar Association Ethics Opinions
  Browse or search the most frequently-requested opinions, from 1987 to present.

General Ethics Information

• Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Attorney Search
  Search for licensed Pennsylvania attorneys and gain information about an attorney such as an 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 Web sites.

• Legal Ethics Discussion List, Washburn University School of Law Library, Topeka KS
  Restricted to lawyers, law professors, and law students only.

• 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, an online forum for NOBC members, and links to other ethics sites.

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." The ABA has created a chart comparing these state opinions.

• Appligent Redax, Appligent Document Solutions
  
  Completely removes text and graphics from the 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 2007/2008.) 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 Powerpoint) 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
  16 page 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 feature 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.