• videocam Live Webinar with Live Q&A
  • calendar_month September 30, 2026 @ 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT
  • signal_cellular_alt Intermediate
  • card_travel Ethics and Specialty Credits
  • schedule 90 minutes

Ethical Drift and Professional Misconduct: When the Attorney Becomes the Defendant

Psychology of Decision-Making Under Pressure, ABA Model Rules, Warning Signs, and Intervention Strategies

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MSRP
$197.00
$167.45
Save $29.55

Discount expires 9/16/26

This course is $0 with these passes:

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About the Course

Introduction

This CLE webinar will examine how professional pressure, rationalization, and other factors may lead attorneys from making what they consider isolated judgment calls to full ethical violations and professional misconduct. The program will connect these decision-making patterns to the ABA Model Rules and provide practical tools for recognizing and interrupting "ethical drift" before it escalates.

Description

Drawing on her own experience and subsequent work examining attorney misconduct and professional decision-making, former attorney, Andreea Parc, LL.M., will use her five-stage Erosion Sequence (™) framework to trace ethical drift from an initial accommodation through normalization, identity drift, a locked position, and eventual external consequences. The program will examine how these patterns intersect with ABA Model Rules 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 3.1, 3.3, 8.3, and 8.4.

Listen as Ms. Parc examines warning signs that professional judgment is beginning to erode, how rationalization and certainty can make questionable conduct appear defensible, and practical decision-making structures attorneys can use to obtain outside perspective, reassess prior decisions, and interrupt ethical drift before it becomes professional misconduct.

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

  • An excellent opportunity to earn Ethics CLE credits. Note: BARBRI cannot guarantee that this course will be approved for ethics credits in all states. To confirm, please contact our CLE department at pdservice@barbri.com.


  • Live Online


    On Demand

Date + Time

  • event

    Wednesday, September 30, 2026

  • schedule

    1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT

I. Ethical drift and attorney decision-making

II. The Erosion Sequence (™)

III. Client representation duties as judgment erodes

IV. Advocacy and candor

V. Reporting and professional misconduct

VI. Interrupting ethical drift

VII. Practitioner takeaways

Ms. Parc will review these and other key considerations:

  • What factors can cause an attorney to treat an ethical concern as a one-time exception rather than a decision requiring further review?
  • How can repetition, loyalty, professional identity, and rationalization make questionable conduct increasingly difficult to reassess?
  • How do Model Rules governing client duties, advocacy, candor, reporting, and misconduct apply as ethical risk escalates?
  • What decision-making controls can attorneys use to interrupt ethical drift before it results in disciplinary or criminal exposure?