The New York Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility has an interesting, and at times rather peculiar, relationship with rules and procedures governing civil litigation. For example, even if a lawyer is found to have violated the code in some respect, such a violation does not always result in an adverse consequence in civil litigation.
Indeed, New York courts have held that evidence obtained in violation of a provision of the code is still admissible at trial; attorneys are not always deemed to have forfeited their fees when they have violated the code; and legal malpractice cannot be established solely by proof of a violation of the code. 1
