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The Ethical Boundaries of Attorney Whistleblowers

By Lawrence S. Spiegel and Esther E. Bloustein

In recent years, federal legislation has encouraged attorneys to become whistleblowers, first with the rules promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) that permit disclosure of client confidential information in certain circumstances and then with the additional whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank) that create a financial incentive for disclosure of confidential information.

These whistleblower rules are in tension with the lawyer's duties of confidentiality and avoiding conflicts predicated on attorney self-interest. That's because they allow disclosure of client confidential information more broadly than do applicable ethics rules in many jurisdictions, and incentivize disclosure through monetary compensation to counsel.

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