Standby Counsel Should Ask Court to Define Ethical Duties

Ethics obligations of a lawyer appointed to act as standby counsel for a self-represented criminal defendant are murky, so the lawyer should ask the presiding judge to specify what the attorney is expected to do and not do for the defendant, the New Hampshire bar’s ethics committee advised in a recent opinion (N.H. Bar Ass’n Ethics Comm., Op. 2015-16/9).

A review of authority by Bloomberg BNA indicates the opinion is one of only a handful to analyze the professional duties of lawyers appointed to serve as standby counsel for a defendant who invokes his constitutional right to represent ...