Conflicts of Interest in the Practice of Law and the Regulation of Disinterestedness

本研究将探讨利益冲突的社会组织及其在私人法律实践世界中的监管。信托义务或职业义务的核心原则是受托人不能为两个主人服务。这种“忠诚的义务”要求受托人保持无私，把他们所代表的人的利益置于自己的利益之上，这一点特别有趣，不仅因为“现实世界”的受托人通常为许多主人服务，而且因为他们的主人经常希望他们这样做。因此，信任的提供者和消费者制定策略，利用利益冲突的理想特征，同时寻找更多不感兴趣的受托人，或者至少制定监管策略，以阻止那些不感兴趣的受托人的持续诱惑。这项研究询问律师事务所和律师如何解释利益冲突，以及他们如何正式和非正式地管理利益冲突。个别律师及其事务所的潜在冲突发生的频率和来源是什么？律师事务所的结构如何识别、评估和回应这些问题？律师如何评估接受或拒绝一项业务的潜在风险和权衡？他们采取了哪些措施来降低这些风险？利益冲突的发生率和来源，或者律师调节利益冲突的策略，是否因法律实践的类型和环境而异？这些自我监管活动对日常的法律实践有什么影响？该研究以伊利诺斯州为背景，将在两个层面上进行分析：(1)律师事务所或律师团队；(2)律师个人。在研究的第一阶段，在冲突事务上拥有最大权力的律师事务所合伙人将被问及公司的政策、做法和程序，这些问题会给公司或公司内部的律师带来潜在的利益冲突。这些访谈将探讨利益冲突的来源和自我监管机制，通过这些机制，公司通常会预测、消除和裁决这些冲突。在第二阶段，将采访不同法律实践领域的律师样本，了解他们作为个人如何遇到、解释、管理、避免、忽视或消除利益冲突。为了调查律师事务所组织结构的变化、律师在社区中的位置、律师的职业轨迹以及与客户的配置和关系如何引起不同的角色冲突和独特的自我监管反应，样本将根据事务所规模和位置（芝加哥/下州和城市/农村）进行分层。个人和事务所的样本将从四个独立的律师登记处或名录的三角组合中随机抽取。总共将进行165次访谈。这项研究将对理解一个重要的政策问题以及对组织和职业行为的理论文献做出重大贡献。

This research will investigate the social organization of conflict of interest and its regulation in the world of private legal practice. The core precept of fiduciary or professional obligation is that trustees cannot serve two masters. This "duty of loyalty," which requires that fiduciaries be disinterested, that they put the interests of those they act for or represent before their own, is particularly intriguing, not only because "real world" trustees routinely serve many masters, but because their masters often want them to. The providers and consumers of trust, therefore, devise strategies to exploit the desirable features of conflicts of interest while searching out more disinterested trustees or at least devising regulatory strategies to disable the persistent temptations of those who are not. This research asks how law firms and lawyers construe conflicts of interest and how they formally and informally manage them. How often and from what sources do potential conflicts arise for individual lawyers and their firms? How are law firms structured to identify, evaluate and respond to them? How do lawyers evaluate the potential risks and trade-offs in accepting or declining a piece of business? What steps do they take to minimize these risks? Do the incidence and sources of conflict of interest or the strategies by which lawyers regulate them vary by the type and setting of the law practice? What impact do these self-regulatory activities have on the everyday practice of law? The research, set in Illinois, will be conducted at two levels of analysis: (1) firms or collections of lawyers and (2) individual lawyers. In the first phase of the study, law firm partners with greatest authority over conflict matters will be questioned about firm policies, practices, and procedures regarding issues that create potential conflicts of interest for the firm or for lawyers within the firm. These interviews will explore the sources of conflicts of interest and the self-regulatory mechanisms through which the firm routinely anticipates, neutralizes and adjudicates them. In the second phase, a sample of lawyers in various areas of legal practice will be interviewed about how, as individuals, they encounter, construe, manage, avoid, disregard, or neutralize conflicts of interest. In order to investigate how structural variations in the organization of the law firm, its location in the community, career trajectories of its lawyers, and configurations of and relations with clients give rise to different role conflicts and unique self-regulatory responses, samples will be stratified by firm size and location (Chicago/downstate and urban/rural). Individual and firm samples will be randomly drawn from a triangulated composite of four independent lawyer registries or directories. A total of 165 interviews will be conducted. This research will make a major contribution to understanding an important policy issue and to the theoretical literature on organizational and professional behavior.