Connecticut’s New Anti-Bias Rule Addresses Free Speech Concerns

Connecticut has reworked an anti-bias ethics rule developed by the American Bar Association to avoid triggering First Amendment concerns that have led a number of other states to reject it.

Connecticut’s version approved earlier this month by the state rules committee and which takes effect in Jan. 1 considered views from across the legal community, and zeroed-in on criticisms that ABA model rule 8.4(g) was too broad and had the potential to chill free speech.

The result is a rule that “addresses the same conduct as the ABA’s rule but makes clear it doesn’t reach language protected by the First ...