Model Rules of Professional Conduct and Other Selected Standards, 2026 Edition

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Morgan’s 2026 Selected Standards on Professional Responsibility provides up-to-date versions of the rules governing one of the most dynamic fields in American law. Even more, this supplement is designed to give classes a basis for discussing the rules lawyers actually face.

Not surprisingly, Morgan’s 2026 Selected Standards begins with the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Those are the rules tested on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) and they are the first rules most lawyers turn to when they talk about legal ethics. These 2026 Selected Standards also include the ABA Canons of Ethics and ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility for classes that want to discuss how today’s Model Rules evolved.

This supplement also provides the black-letter rules of the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Third): The Law Governing Lawyers. This Restatement is the most comprehensive statement of the rationale and law regulating lawyer conduct, including principles going well beyond those found in the ABA Model Rules.

The book then sets out the California Rules of Professional Conduct, selected California statutes regulating the practice of law, and the official New York Rules of Professional Conduct. Each is important for students in those states, but each also lets classes everywhere discuss the differing versions of particular rules that these states have adopted.

Of particular interest, the 2026 Standards Supplement contains a sophisticated analysis prepared by the Attorneys' Liability Assurance Society (ALAS) of rules permitting or even requiring disclosure of client misconduct. The law of every state is presented in a user-friendly way intended to help lawyers, professors and students take a deep dive into this complex topic and appreciate the variety of approaches states have taken to the issues raised.

Two other documents included in Selected Standards point to the possible future of the profession. The Utah Supreme Court’s “Regulatory Sandbox” order and the Arizona Supreme Court’s 2020 rule permitting Alternative Business Structures would let nonlawyers deliver legal services and possibly invest in law firms. The topics can be controversial, and as this 2026 edition shows, in 2025 Utah backed off from its original stance. The effects of these experiments are being studied systematically and the issues are certainly worth classroom attention.

Morgan’s Selected Standards then turns to judicial ethics. Once again, the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct leads off, and California’s Code of Judicial Ethics follows. But federal judicial ethics have gotten even more public attention in recent years, and Selected Standards includes the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, and the Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the latter of which the Court published in 2023. This book ends with the text of selected federal statutes to which the Supreme Court reports that all federal judges and justices acknowledge they must adhere.

Students, faculty, the practicing bar, and judges will find 2026 Selected Standards on Professional Responsibility to be useful and convenient for examination of professional responsibility issues they will confront daily and are even more likely to face in the future.

The book reflects changes in lawyer professional standards at the time of its publication in September 2025.

Imprint: Foundation Press
Series: Selected Statutes
Publication Date: 12/05/2025