Lopez

INTRODUCTION

The past decade has witnessed a rapidly growing concern regarding the ethical conduct of lawyers. More and more citizens are lodging complaints alleging misconduct by attorneys, and state bar associations are becoming increasingly active in investigating and addressing such complaints. Even with these efforts, the public remains critical of existing mechanisms for lawyer discipline and has demanded more accountability from the legal profession.

Rather than evading the new focus on lawyer misconduct, government attorneys and prosecutors often have found themselves at the center of it. The most recent report of the Attorney General’s Office of Professional Responsibility indicates that there has been a notable increase in the number of complaints, both substantiated and unsubstantiated, of ethical violations by federal prosecutors. This growth undoubtedly arises from both the swift increase in the number of attorneys employed by the Department of Justice and evolving efforts by the Department to limit the rights of suspects and defendants in certain areas. Many commentators have voiced concern over the increasing frequency of incidents of prosecutorial…