Professional Responsibility Attack Outline: How to Build One

Your course outline stores information. An attack outline retrieves it under time pressure. In PR the retrieval cue is almost never a rule number — it is a fact. A hypo does not say "apply Rule 1.9"; it says a lawyer left a firm and is now suing a company she used to advise. Your outline has to be indexed by that fact.

The second difference is modality. PR grading turns on whether conduct is required, permitted, or forbidden, and the MPRE writes answer choices to punish students who blur the three. Rule 1.6(b) exceptions are permissive ("may reveal"). Rule 3.3(a)(3) remedial measures are mandatory ("shall take reasonable remedial measures"). Rule 8.3(a) reporting is mandatory. Rule 1.16(a) withdrawal is mandatory; 1.16(b) is permissive. Put MUST, MAY, or MUST NOT in bold at the front of every line you write. If a line does not carry one of those tags, it is background and belongs in your long outline.

Third, PR rewards a standard vocabulary. Most rules are triggered by "knows," "reasonably believes," "reasonably should know," or "substantial risk." Rule 1.0(f) defines knowledge as actual knowledge that may be inferred from circumstances. Copy the Rule 1.0 terminology definitions onto page one and refer back to them; half of the close calls on an exam are definitional, not doctrinal.

Use a hybrid. Order the modules by the chronology of a representation, and inside each module list the rules in numerical order so you can still cross-check coverage against the syllabus. A workable spine runs: (1) who is the client and when did that start; (2) conflicts; (3) confidentiality and privilege; (4) competence, diligence, communication, and scope; (5) fees, property, and trust accounts; (6) duties to courts and third parties; (7) firm structure, supervision, and unauthorized practice; (8) advertising and solicitation; (9) withdrawal and post-representation duties; (10) judges.

Front-load module one. Client identity resolves more issues than any other single question, and it is the step students skip. Togstad v. Vesely, Otto, Miller & Keefe, 291 N.W.2d 686 (Minn. 1980), is your anchor for formation by reasonable reliance without a fee or a signed agreement. Rule 1.18 covers the prospective client who consults and never retains. Rule 1.13 tells you the organization is the client, not the constituent, and Rule 1.13(f) requires you to explain that to constituents when their interests diverge. Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981), governs which employee communications are privileged in the federal courts.

Cap the whole thing with a one-page issue-spotting checklist you read before writing: Who is the client? Is there a conflict, and is it consentable? What information is protected, and does any exception apply? Was there a tribunal or third party involved? Was money or property involved? What is the consequence being asked about?

PR questions come in six flavors, and the same facts produce different answers depending on which one is posed. Label the flavor before you analyze. The Scope note to the Model Rules says a rule violation does not itself create a cause of action or a presumption of a breached legal duty — that sentence resolves a lot of essay questions.

Keep the disciplinary track separate from the litigation-remedy track in your outline. Disqualification motions run on conflicts rules plus the court's supervisory power, with Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153 (1988), holding that a trial court may refuse a defendant's waiver of a conflict. Ineffective assistance runs on Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), with the conflict variants in Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475 (1978), Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335 (1980), and Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U.S. 162 (2002). Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157 (1986), tells you that refusing to help a client commit perjury is not deficient performance.

Conflicts is the largest tested area and the one that most rewards a decision tree. Draw it as a flowchart, not prose, and run every conflicts fact pattern through the same five questions.

First, current or former client? Rule 1.7 covers current clients — direct adversity or a significant risk that representation will be materially limited by duties to another client, a former client, a third person, or the lawyer's own interests. Rule 1.9(a) covers former clients: same or substantially related matter, materially adverse interests. Second, is it a Rule 1.8 transactional conflict with its own hard-coded procedure — 1.8(a) business transactions, 1.8(b) using client information, 1.8(c) substantial gifts and instruments, 1.8(e) financial assistance, 1.8(f) third-party payors, 1.8(h) prospective liability limits, 1.8(j) sexual relations. Third, is the conflict consentable? Rule 1.7(b) requires reasonable belief in competent and diligent representation, no legal prohibition, no assertion of a claim by one client against another in the same litigation, and informed consent confirmed in writing.

Fourth, imputation. Rule 1.10(a) imputes conflicts across a firm, with exceptions for purely personal-interest conflicts and for screened lateral hires under 1.10(a)(2). Rule 1.11 handles the former or current government lawyer, 1.12 the former judge, arbitrator, or law clerk, and 1.18(d) the prospective client. Note in the margin which screens are permitted, which require written notice, and which require the disqualified lawyer to be apportioned no part of the fee. Fifth, timing: a conflict that arises mid-representation may force withdrawal under Rule 1.16(a)(1), and the hot-potato problem — dropping a client to avoid a conflict — should be a flagged line in your outline.

Write Rule 1.6(a) as the default (all information relating to the representation, whatever the source, not just privileged material), then list the 1.6(b) exceptions as seven numbered permissions: prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm; prevent client crime or fraud reasonably certain to cause substantial financial injury and in furtherance of which the client used the lawyer's services; prevent, mitigate, or rectify such injury that has already occurred; secure legal ethics advice; establish a claim or defense in a dispute with the client or respond to charges; comply with other law or a court order; detect and resolve conflicts on a lawyer's change of employment. Add 1.6(c)'s reasonable-efforts duty to prevent inadvertent disclosure.

Then draw the override map. Rule 3.3(c) makes candor duties apply even when compliance requires disclosing information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6, and those duties run to the conclusion of the proceeding. Rule 4.1(b) requires disclosure to a third person when necessary to avoid assisting a client crime or fraud unless disclosure is prohibited by 1.6 — the opposite structure, and a favorite trap. Rule 1.13(b) requires reporting up the ladder inside an organization, and 1.13(c) permits limited reporting out. Keep the three side by side so you can see which one wins.

Fees and property are rule-mechanical, so write them as checklists. Rule 1.5(a) reasonableness factors, 1.5(b) communication of the basis of the fee, 1.5(c) contingent fees in a signed writing with a closing statement, 1.5(d) contingency bans in criminal matters and in domestic relations matters contingent on securing a divorce or the amount of alimony or support, 1.5(e) fee division with outside lawyers. For Rule 1.15, memorize four verbs: separate, safeguard, notify and deliver promptly, and keep disputed portions separate until resolved. Commingling and misuse of trust funds produce the harshest discipline in the reported cases.

Advertising and solicitation carry a constitutional overlay you should compress into four cases: Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977) (truthful advertising is protected commercial speech); Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, 436 U.S. 447 (1978) (in-person solicitation for pecuniary gain may be banned); In re Primus, 436 U.S. 412 (1978) (political-expression solicitation by a nonprofit is protected); Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 515 U.S. 618 (1995) (30-day post-accident direct-mail waiting period upheld). Then state the current Rule 7.3 exceptions for lawyers, family, close personal or prior professional relationships, and routine users of the services.

Judicial ethics is usually ten percent of the tested material and worth exactly one page. Focus on Model Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 2.11 disqualification grounds, extrajudicial activity limits, and the campaign-speech line drawn by Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002), and Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, 575 U.S. 433 (2015). Add Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009), for the due process floor above the Code.

This varies by school and by exam, and the variation is real. The MPRE tests the ABA Model Rules and the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. Many law school courses test the Model Rules too, but faculty in California, New York, Texas, and other states with distinct codes often test the local version — California renumbered its rules in 2018 to track the Model Rules format but kept substantive differences, including on confidentiality and on when a lawyer may reveal information to prevent harm. Ask your professor, in writing, which body of rules governs the exam, and whether comments are fair game. Then build the outline in that code's numbering.

Two substantive areas diverge most across states: screening to avoid imputed disqualification, which many jurisdictions restrict more than Model Rule 1.10(a)(2) does, and Model Rule 8.4(g) on harassment and discrimination, which a substantial number of states have declined to adopt or have adopted in modified form. Flag both in your outline with a note rather than a rule statement. Rule 8.5(b) is your choice-of-law tiebreaker: for conduct in connection with a matter pending before a tribunal, the rules of the jurisdiction where the tribunal sits apply; otherwise, the rules where the conduct occurred, or where the predominant effect is felt.

For citation form, the Bluebook treats model codes under its rule for uniform and model acts. The current form looks like: Model Rules of Pro. Conduct r. 1.6(b)(1) (Am. Bar Ass'n 2023). Older editions abbreviated it "Prof'l" and used a capital R. Judicial ethics: Model Code of Jud. Conduct r. 2.11 (Am. Bar Ass'n 2020). The Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers is cited by section and is genuinely useful for malpractice and privilege questions your rules do not reach. Confirm the exact edition-year parenthetical your professor or journal expects before you standardize the file.

Finally, test the outline before the exam. Take twenty practice questions and time how long it takes you to find the governing page. If it takes more than fifteen seconds, your index is wrong, not your knowledge.