Rules and Opinions

• ABA Center for Professional Responsibility
  Resources guide to ABA publications and services. Features headnote summaries of recent ABA Ethics Opinions. Also includes a link to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

• American Legal Ethics Library, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
  Contains the rules setting standards for the professional conduct of lawyers as well as commentary on the law governing lawyers, organized on a state by state basis.

• Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
  Contains the full text of the Ethics 2000 changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct, plus the order adopting the changes, effective January 1, 2005. Also features a searchable database of licensed attorneys, including disciplined attorneys.

• Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
  Provides access to both the version of the Model Rules adopted by the ABA in February 5, 2002, in response to the recommendations of the Ethics 2000 Commision (the "Current Version") and the prior version of the Model Rules (the "Pre-2002" version). Both versions link to one another.

• palawlibrary.com
  Subscription site containing Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unreported and reported opinions and current Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct. Site offers a 14-day trial.

• Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct
  The rules can be found in Title 204, Chapter 81 of the Pennsylvania Code.

• Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission
  Provides access to rulings, advices and opinions from 1979-present.

• Philadelphia Bar Association Ethics Opinions
  Browse or search the most frequently-requested opinions, from 1987 to present.

General Ethics Information

• FindLaw: Ethics and Professional Responsibility
  Links to rules, decisions, journals, newsletters, articles and other Web sites.

• LegalEthics.com
  Ethics information searchable by practice area and topic.

• National Organization of Bar Counsel
  Nonprofit organization whose members enforce ethical rules. Provides links to summaries of cases on attorney disciplinary matters, a NOBC membership directory, an online forum for NOBC members, and links to other ethics sites.

Services

• Bioethicslaw Listserv, Washburn University School of Law Library, Topeka KS
  Email discussion group on bioethics law. Information is provided for subscribing, unsubscribing, and posting messages.

• Court TV Lawyer Check
  Enter your name, email address, and the name and location of an attorney; Court TV Lawyer Check will contact the appropriate state authorities to see if there's any record of disciplinary action taken and then email you back with the findings.

• ETHICSearch, American Bar Association
  Ask a legal ethics question and receive citations to relevant ABA rules, opinions, and other ethics resources. There’s no charge for an initial consultation or if the ETHICSearch lawyer can answer the question immediately. Additional research will incur a charge.

• LegalEthics Listserv, Washburn University School of Law Library, Topeka KS
  Email discussion group on legal ethics. The list is available only to attorneys, law professors, and law students. Information is provided for subscribing, unsubscribing, and posting messages.

Metadata

Metadata is data about data. It describes how, when, and by whom a document was created. Distributing documents containing metadata may violate PA Rule 1.6 if it violates a client’s confidentiality. ABA Ethics Opinion 06-442 (August 5, 2006) states that "The Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not contain any specific prohibition against a lawyer’s reviewing and using embedded information in electronic documents, whether received from opposing counsel, an adverse party, or an agent of an adverse party." Individual state bar associations do not necessarily agree. PA Bar Formal Opinion Number 2007-500 (not freely available online) concludes that "Each attorney must determine for himself or herself whether to utilize the metadata contained in documents and other electronic files."

• Appligent
  
  Adobe Acrobat PDF files generally contain less metadata.  However, if authors redact text improperly, the information becomes visible if the text is copied to a text editor.  This third-party software properly redacts information in PDF documents.

• Doc Scrubber
  Free metadata scrubber that works with MS Word documents in the classic .DOC format used in Word 97, 2000, XP, 2003. (Does not currently support the new .DOCX format used by Word 2007/2008.) Also allows you to scrub multiple documents at a time.

• How to Minimize Metadata in Word 2003
  Some metadata in MS Word is generated automatically and is available via File - Properties.  Other metadata can be manually added via the Track Changes feature.

• iScrub
  Metadata removal and management utility for Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) documents and Adobe Acrobat PDF files.  Site also maintains a Metadata Risk Library containing links to articles discussing metadata issues. 

• Metadata Assistant, Payne Group
  Popular metadata scrubber for MS Office documents.

• Minimizing Metadata in WordPerfect 12 Documents
  16 page white paper that covers the procedures for removing comments, hidden text, document revision annotations, and more.

• Remove Hidden Data and Personal Information from MS Office 2007 Documents
  Explains how the Document Inspector feature in Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 can help you find and remove hidden data and personal information in your Office documents.
  

• Saving WordPerfect Files Without Metadata
  Discusses steps you can take to save WordPerfect documents without hidden data, including version X3's Save Without Metadata feature.
  

• Workshare Protect
  Popular metadata scrubber for MS Office documents.