NACA Ethics Webinars

Ethics in Consumer Cases: How Not to Look Sleazy

What You Will Learn

• Whether you can tape phone calls with the bad guy
• Whether you can contact the bad guy’s employee
• Whether you can agree never to sue that bad guy again, in order to get a good settlement for my current client
• Whether you can represent several plaintiffs at once against the same bad guy

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Ethics: Unconscious Bias Against Women in the Law

What You Will Learn

• How to recognize bias against women
• How to combat bias against women
• How to be an ally for women who are facing gender bias

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Ethics of Advertising

What You Will Learn

• How to ethically generate client leads and market your services

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Let's Get Ethical

Legal ethics is a minefield for the unwary lawyer. The program will address common ethics issues that arise in handling consumer matters, including whether one can ethically suggest that a client record telephone calls, issues raised in representing multiple consumers against a single defendant, defendants’ efforts to keep information and settlement terms confidential, and ethical requirements when communicating with potential clients. In addition, the program will address recent ethics opinions that may affect consumer-litigation on both an individual and a class basis.

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Additional Resources

Class Action Guidelines

NACA maintains the comprehensive “Standards and Guidelines for Litigating and Settling Consumer Class Actions” 299 F.R.D. 160, first published in 1998, fully updated in 2006, revised in 2014, and updated again in 2023. These standards exist to ensure that the occasional and limited misuse of the class action device does not lead to restrictions on the ability of this procedure to challenge abusive business practices.

The paper addresses the propriety of class actions when individual recoveries are small, the questionability of coupon settlements, settlements when other class actions are on file, additional compensation to named plaintiffs, the scope of class member releases, cy pres awards, attorneys fees, and improved notice of settlement.