[textbook]Traversing the Ethical Minefield Problems, Law, and Professional Responsibility by Susan R. Martyn (z-lib.org)(1) (1)

Immanuel Kant argued that deontological justifications, which rest on categorical
imperatives or fundamental rights, should provide the yardstick for moral accountability.
Confidentiality obligations are essential to the purpose of the legal system, which exists to
protect individual rights, such as the right to contract, to own property, or to obtain due
process. These rights, which respect persons by protecting individual liberty and promoting
respect for human autonomy, easily can become vulnerable to infringement by powerful
majoritarian interests of the government or others. Law and the legal system provide the
means to ensure that such infringements are prevented or redressed.
Confidentiality promotes both the individual rights of citizens and the trust that is
central to a client-lawyer relationship. It is a fundamental ethical value, just as loyalty and
honesty are integral to a trusting relationship. Privacy also promotes the individual rights of
citizens by giving them personal space to plan and define their own meaning in life. The
government should not be able to infringe on that private space when it is used to promote
that individual’s autonomous sense of self. A lawyer’s obligation not to share the
information further protects the client’s own defined sphere of privacy, which can become
especially important when government compulsion seeks to invade it.
The cases and other materials in this chapter and the next two illustrate how both of
these justifications inform professional obligations of confidentiality, as well as exceptions
to the doctrine.
B. Fiduciary Duty Model Rules 1.6, 1.8(b) RLGL §§ 59, 60
Matter of Anonymous
932 N.E.2d 671 (Ind. 2010)
PER CURIAM. . . .
Respondent represented an organization that employed “AB.” Respondent became
acquainted with AB though this connection. In December 2007, AB and her husband were
involved in an altercation to which the police were called, during which, AB’s husband
asserted, she threatened to harm him. In January 2008, AB phoned Respondent and told
her about her husband’s allegation and that she and her husband had separated. In a second
phone call that month, AB asked Respondent for a referral to a family law attorney.
Respondent gave AB the name of an attorney in Respondent’s firm. Respondent then called
this attorney to inform her of the referral and to give her AB’s phone number. The attorney
called AB that same day and arranged a meeting the following day, when AB retained the
attorney. AB told the attorney about the December 2007 incident and directed her to file a
divorce petition. Respondent was aware that AB had retained the attorney from her firm
and had filed for divorce. AB and her husband soon reconciled, however, and, at AB’s
request, the divorce petition was dismissed and the firm’s representation of AB ended.
. . . In March or April 2008, Respondent was socializing with two friends, one of whom
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