Legal and Judicial Ethics shares an afternoon with Remedial Law and carries part of a sitting worth 25% of the weighted general average. It is also the subject with the highest ratio of marks to reading: the canon is short, the duties are enumerated, and a candidate who can name the provision and apply it earns marks that a candidate who writes a paragraph about propriety does not.
This article is about the shape of an ethics answer.
Why ethics answers lose marks
Not usually for ignorance. Candidates generally know that a lawyer should not represent conflicting interests. The marks are lost in three ways:
- The duty is named generically. "The lawyer violated professional ethics" instead of "the lawyer breached the duty of confidentiality under Canon III, Section 7 of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability".
- The duties are merged. A fact pattern engages confidentiality, conflict of interest and competence. An answer that discusses "the lawyer's obligations" as one thing answers none of them precisely.
- The consequence is missing. Ethics questions nearly always ask what follows: discipline, inhibition, nullity, return of fees, administrative liability of a judge. An answer that establishes the breach and stops has answered the interesting half and not the asked one.
The five-part ethics answer
A structure that fits almost every ethics fact pattern in twelve minutes:
- The duty. Name it, and the provision that creates it.
- The rule's content. What the canon requires or prohibits, in one or two sentences.
- The application. Named facts: what the lawyer did, to whom, with what knowledge.
- The breach — or its absence. Commit. If the answer is that there is no breach, say so and explain why the rule tolerates the conduct.
- The consequence. Disciplinary liability and its likely sanction; plus the practical consequence (nullity of a notarial act, disqualification, inhibition, restitution), where the facts engage one.
The fifth part is where most of the difference between a good and a weak answer lives, because it converts a discussion into advice.
The duties that appear most often
You cannot predict questions, but the same areas recur across examination years because they are the areas with facts attached. Learn them as duties with elements, not as topics.
| Area | The duty | The fact pattern that triggers it |
|---|---|---|
| Conflict of interest | Loyalty; no representation adverse to a former or current client in a related matter | Two clients, one transaction; a former client's confidential information |
| Confidentiality | Keep client confidences, including after the engagement | Disclosure to a third party, or use in another matter |
| Candour to the court | No false statements, no suppression of authority | Unverified allegation; citing a reversed case |
| Competence and diligence | Adequate preparation; no neglect | Missed period; delegation to an unsupervised clerk |
| Fees | No unreasonable or unconscionable fees; proper handling of client funds | Retention of funds; a fee contingent on a criminal acquittal |
| Notarial practice | The 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice: qualifications, disqualifications, the personal appearance requirement | Notarising without appearance; a disqualified notary; a missing commission |
| Advertising | No false or misleading solicitation | Online posts, "no-win-no-fee" claims, testimonials |
| Judge's conduct | Impartiality, propriety, and the duty to inhibit | Social ties to a litigant; prior involvement as counsel |
For each row, write one fact pattern in your own words that would breach it. That list is a bank of scenario answers, and building it takes an afternoon.
Naming the provision
An ethics answer without a provision reads as opinion. The Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability replaced the earlier Code in 2023, and it is organised in canons with numbered sections; the Notarial Rules are a separate issuance; judicial conduct has its own code.
Three habits:
- Learn the canon headings and the sections you use most. Not by heart verbatim — by number and subject, so that an answer can say "Canon III, Section 7 (confidentiality)".
- Cite the provision you are actually applying, not the one you remember.
- If you cannot recall the number, state the duty precisely and say "under the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability". A precise duty with an approximate citation is far better than an approximate duty with a precise one.
That last point matters more in this subject than any other: an examiner marking ethics is looking for whether you know what the duty is, and a wrong section number attached to a right duty costs less than a right section number attached to nothing.
The separation that earns marks
Most ethics fact patterns engage two or three duties at once. Answer them separately, in order, and say so:
"Two duties are engaged. First, confidentiality: the lawyer disclosed the client's settlement position to a third party, which Canon [x] prohibits because… Second, conflict of interest: the disclosure was made to a party now adverse to the client in a related matter, which engages the rule on conflicting interests because…"
Each duty then gets its own application and conclusion. A marker can tick twice.
The consequence, precisely
Ethics questions reward a lawyer's instinct for consequences. Name the right one:
- Discipline — the appropriate sanction and the body (the Supreme Court in the exercise of its disciplinary power over lawyers; the Office of the Court Administrator and the Supreme Court for judges).
- Nullity — a notarial act performed by a disqualified notary, or without the required personal appearance, fails as a notarial act.
- Inhibition or disqualification — the judge who must inhibit, the lawyer who must withdraw.
- Restitution or disgorgement — return of unearned fees, or of client funds.
- Evidentiary consequence — privileged matter disclosed may be excluded; a document improperly notarised loses its public character.
One further habit distinguishes strong answers: **say what does not follow.** A breach of a canon does not automatically void the underlying contract; a lawyer's misconduct does not necessarily disqualify the lawyer's client. An answer that distinguishes the disciplinary consequence from the substantive one reads like a practitioner's answer and is marked like one.
The judge questions
Where a judge is in the fact pattern, three questions recur:
- Must the judge inhibit? The rule, applied to the relationship or prior involvement in the facts.
- Is the conduct a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct, and which duty?
- What is the administrative consequence, and before which office?
Judges' cases reward precision about role: a judge acting in an administrative capacity is held to a different standard from a judge adjudicating, and an answer that blurs the two is answering a different question.
Practising this in an afternoon
The subject is small enough that an afternoon of drills moves it forward visibly:
- Take ten ethics fact patterns from past papers.
- For each, write only the five-part skeleton — duty, rule, application, breach, consequence — three lines per part.
- Check each against the provision. Where you named a duty without a provision, find it.
- Write two at full length, twelve minutes each.
Then repeat the drill a fortnight later with different questions. Ethics is the one subject where the same answer shape covers almost every question, which is why a modest amount of preparation here produces a disproportionate share of the last afternoon's marks — 25% of the result, on a paper where the ethics problems are the ones you can finish in eight minutes and bank the time for the procedural ones described in the practical exercises sitting.