The ABA’s Business Law Section will be holding what promises to be an excellent panel on behavioral legal ethics at its annual meeting in Chicago on September 12, 2014. It looks great and is highly recommended.
Michael Herman, the program chair, has provided the following description:
The Road to Abilene, Temporary Blindness, Slippery Slopes, and Other Hazards to Ethical Behavior by Lawyers
Lawyers confront ethical challenges, such as potential conflicts of interest, on a daily basis. Our last program discussed the largely unconscious cognitive biases that, without our being aware of them, affect everyone, including lawyers. This program will explore what research in behavioral, social, and organizational psychology can teach us about how the dynamics of group and other organizational settings, including law firms, influence our ethical choices.
The panel of distinguished scholars and practitioners (including long-time Section friend Don Langevoort, of Georgetown Law Center, and leading behavioral ethics scholar Ann Tenbrunsel, of Notre Dame) will cover topics such as bounded ethicality, self-serving bias, framing, ethical fading, motivated blindness and incrementalism, using case studies, demonstrations, and video clips.
In addition, Dr. Larry Richard will be part of the panel. Dr. Richard, a psychologist and a lawyer, will speak to how lawyers in particular are subject to some of these influences. We will also be discussing two fact-based studies to give the audience a sense of how these concepts actually play out in particular circumstances.
James G. Milles
Molly J. W. Wilson
Tigran Eldred
Behavioral Legal Ethics 