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Chapter 11 of the 'Bankruptcy Code' is often justified by vague assertions that reorganizing troubled companies is in the \"public interest.\" There has, however, been surprisingly little effort to consider seriously what this public interest is, how it should be operationalized, or who should pay for it. Based on a case study of the controversial bankruptcy of crypto complex FTX, this article develops a three-part typology of public interests at stake in chapter 11 and shows how they can conflict with one another and with private interests: (1) the paramount public interest in the integrity of the judicial process; (2) bankruptcy-specific public interests in maximizing value through efficient, consolidated proceedings; and (3) \"other\" public interests, such as the prosecution and defense of serious crimes. We place FTX's counsel, Sullivan and Cromwell (SandC), at the center of this triptych. We present evidence indicating that SandC had undisclosed potential conflicts of interest due to apparent errors, omissions, and deceptions in their work for the company and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, before, at, and during the bankruptcy, thereby undermining the first-order public interest in procedural integrity. SandC's role as debtor's counsel has cast a troubling shadow over puzzling and costly decisions in the case, thereby undermining a second, bankruptcy-specific form of the public interest: maximizing an estate's value. SandC often justified its actions by reference to the third, \"other\" facet of the public interest. Namely, SandC touted that it supported the prosecution of disfavored insiders such as Bankman-Fried. But that pricey task - for which SandC billed millions of dollars - may have distorted the prosecutions without producing observable economic benefit to the bankruptcy estate. FTX is a cautionary tale about the power that lawyers have to frame, control, and profit from claims about the public interest in chapter 11. An examiner appointed late in the case largely exonerated SandC, although he engaged little of the evidence we present. This is not surprising because SandC's resistance to that intervention left a narrow scope and little time for his investigation. We situate our findings in a nascent body of literature exploring the public interest in bankruptcy. We suggest that the experience with SandC in FTX May reflect larger patterns in reorganization reminiscent of historical concerns about distorted incentives in restructuring processes. To ameliorate these concerns, we offer guidance to improve the functioning of the principal custodians of the public interest in chapter 11. Courts should more carefully police pre-bankruptcy connections of estate professionals and should use preliminary examinations more frequently. We further believe that the United States Trustee should have greater independence from other government actors so it can fulfil its watchdog mandate without compromise.

[...]ethical rules can curb against external critiques.6 U.S. Supreme Court reasoning for diminishing Tribal authority stems not from any specific findings of Tribal ineptness, but that \"by virtue of their incorporation into the American republic, 'their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, [are] necessarily diminished. For the most part, Tribes that have established rules have predominantly adopted the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct much like their state counterparts. The Duty of Competence Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides that competent representation requires \"the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.\" Former U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid observed that \"[f]ar from being an academic exercise, the quest for greater historical and cultural awareness by attorneys representing or dealing with tribes and tribal enterprises goes to the heart of every lawyer's basic obligation to provide competent representation to his or her client under Rule 1.1 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

[...]we discuss recent enactment of legislation in Hong Kong and Singapore providing for third-party funding of arbitration. A.Representative Countries with Established TPLF Industries 1.Australia TPLF has been in existence in Australia for more than two decades.4 In the last decade, TPLF has played an increasingly significant role in large class actions, particularly securities cases.5 A recent study found that almost 50% of federal class actions in the last six years were funded by third parties.6 An important factor driving TPLF in Australian civil litigation is the country's fee-shifting approach, whereby the losing party is typically responsible for paying some or all of the winning party's legal costs and other expenses.7 Another factor driving TPLF in Australia is the country's prohibition on contingency fee arrangements.8 This prohibition prevents Australian plaintiffs' attorneys from amassing the kind of \"war chest\" often used to fund significant litigation in countries such as the United States, where contingency fee arrangements are permitted.9 In recognition of the difficulties that cost-shifting creates in class action litigation, Australian commissions on law reform have recommended that contingency fees be permitted and a class action fund be created; however, the Australian government has yet to act upon those recommendations.10 Financing arrangements in the class action context typically involve the funder's payment of counsel's legal fees and costs incurred in the litigation, and if the litigation is unsuccessful, indemnification of the funded party from any order to pay the opposing party's costs.11 In return, the funder typically contracts to receive a percentage of the amount recovered if the litigation is successful, commonly in the range of 25-40%.12 With approval from the courts, funders have exercised significant control over the conduct of Australian class actions.13 One of the indirect, and some argue undesirable, consequences of TPLF involvement in Australia has been the rise of limited \"opt-in\" classes. Because there is no class certification procedure or other mechanism that might result in a judicial order binding all class members to the funding agreement, litigation funders require class members to sign the agreement that entitles the funder to share in the proceeds in the event the litigation is successful.14 This has resulted in the de facto creation of \"opt in\" classes, which limits the number of potential beneficiaries to those who have signed the agreement.15 A recent decision by the Federal Court, however, has paved the way for eliminating the need for closed classes. [...]the Australian Federal Government reversed the decision, exempting funding arrangements from the Corporations Act. 19 However, funders and funding arrangements are monitored by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (\"ASIC\"), which requires funders to have adequate procedures to manage conflicts of interest.20 2.United Kingdom21 TPLF is well-established in the United Kingdom. 22 TPLF is available for a wide range of disputes, including arbitrations.23 The industry is not specifically regulated, although the Association of Litigation Funders provides a form of self-regulation.24 Funders that are registered and based in the UK are also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, but the actual funding arrangements are not.25 Courts have held that a litigation funder, even though it is not a party to the litigation, may be held liable for adverse costs.26 In a recent landmark decision, the High Court of Justice in London held that a prevailing party in arbitration could recover not only its legal costs, but also the £1.94 million that it was required to pay to its third party funder.27 The court held that the arbitrator's power to include the funder's fee in the cost award stemmed from the language in section 59(1)(c) of the Arbitration Act of 1996 (permitting recovery of \"other costs\") and Article 3(1) of the ICC Arbitration Rules.28 The specific facts of the case were relatively egregious, and the arbitrator had found that the losing party had deliberately put the other party in a position where it could not self-fund the arbitration. [...]it remains unclear how frequently arbitrators will award funding costs. The decision of the arbitrator as to whether to award costs owed to the funder is subject to an overall reasonableness requirement. 29 The court noted that the Civil Procedure Rules for litigation speak only of \"costs\" and therefore would not permit recovery of costs paid by the party to its funder.30 With respect to the mandatory disclosure of TPLF arrangements, UK law imposes no express obligation to disclose either the fact of litigation funding or the agreement itself to the opposing party or the court.31 However, courts have discretion to compel disclosure of the funder's identity in the context of an application for security for costs.32 As to privilege, it is uncertain whether a party waives privilege by disclosing otherwise privileged documents to the third party funder; however, the documents will generally retain their privileged status as against the world, and the funder is prohibited from disclosing the documents to third-parties.

Model Rule 8.4(d) states that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to \"engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.\" Because there is a significant risk that the prosecutor's exercise of independent judgment will be influenced by the prosecutor's financial interests in the literary or media deal, entering into such a deal would be prejudicial to the administration of justice. [...]Standard 3-1.11(b) addresses the potential risk that a possible future literary or media deal poses, and reinforces the prosecutor's duty of client loyalty and the obligation to exercise independent professional judgment on behalf of the government in the face of the possibility of such a deal. [...]there are some instances, such as entering into a literary or media deal, in which the prosecutor's personal financial interests may interfere with the exercise of independent prosecutorial judgment on behalf of the government. First is the \"self as moral\" or \"illusion of objectivity\" bias, which is \"the tendency to believe oneself as more 'honest, trustworthy, ethical, and fair than others.'\" (Id.) Eldred explains that this bias leads to overconfidence that one is more objective and better than others, to which a prosecutor may be especially susceptible being charged with the responsibility of prosecuting violations of the law.

In his book Securing Reasonable Caseloads: Ethics and Law in Public Defense (2011), Professor Norman Lefstein observed that excessive caseloads among public defenders \"implicate a number of state rules of professional conduct,\" including: According to the OCDC filing, \"[historically, [he] filed more amended motions and had more court hearings than anyone else in his office.\" Michael Barret, director of the Missouri State Public Defender, described the situation as a Catch-22 in an October 6, 2017, article (Dan Margolies, Many Missouri Public Defenders Decline New Cases After Supreme Court Disciplines Lawyer, KCUR): If I was a cartoonist for a newspaper, I'd draw a picture of a public defender with two guns pointed at him from either side of their head: In such cases, the public defender should \"continue to explore non-litigation alternatives . . . while requiring the [public defenders] to make a record in their cases, if appropriate, about the lawyers' inability, due to excessive caseloads, to furnish 'competent' and 'diligent' representation as required by the professional conduct rules.\"

Class counsel and prosecutors have a lot more in common than scholars realize. These lawyers have clients, but their clients are diffuse and lack a formal decisionmaking structure. Because of the nature of their clients, class counsel and prosecutors have to make decisions for their clients that one would ordinarily expect clients to make-and indeed that legal ethics rules would expressly require clients to make in other contexts-such as decisions concerning objectives of representation or whether to settle or plead guilty. Both complex litigation and criminal law scholars recognize that these lawyers' self-interests diverge from their clients' interests. But the complex litigation and criminal law literatures discuss the ensuing accountability problem solely in their own spheres. This article considers the insights about accountability that complex litigation can learn from criminal law. More specifically, the article argues that although there are real differences between the two systems, these differences do not justify the completely different approaches to accountability that the two contexts employ. Rather, the comparison suggests that internal checks within class counsel's firm, between plaintiffs' firms, or between third-party funders and class counsel can improve accountability, much as internal checks improve accountability within some prosecutors' offices.

Within 72 hours after entering into this contract or before the next athletic event in which you are eligible to participate, whichever occurs first, both you and the agent by whom you are agreeing to be represented must notify the athletic director of the educational institution at which you are enrolled, or other individual responsible for athletic programs at such educational institution, that you have entered into an agency contract.1\"1 In addition, the National Basketball Players Association (\"NBPA\") has weighed in on agents and concurrent representation.1'21 In February 2016, NBPA's executive committee voted unanimously to enforce \"a long-ignored rule forbidding player agents from simultaneously representing coaches and management.\" [...]attorney must be highly trained and educated.1381 Thirdly, an attorney's obligations to his clients do not change due to the nature of the sports industry.

A telecommunications company hires a law firm to help it calibrate its bid for an FCC license. To provide full legal advice, the firm learns confidential information about the company's structure, business model, and strategy. Eventually, the representation ends. Soon, the company is repeatedly outbid for subsequent licenses by a rival telecom company -- missing opportunities for financial gain at every turn. The company is outraged to learn that its rival has been getting legal advice from the same law firm. The company fears that the law firm is exploiting the confidential information it learned from previously representing the company. The company suspects that this breach of confidentiality has directly caused it to lose bids and other market opportunities. In effect, the company seeks to use the violation of Rule 1.9 to help prove that the law firm misused its confidences. In the breach-of-confidentiality suit, the company's alleged damages are the profits it lost from missing out on the subsequent FCC licenses.

Detainees represented by major US law firms - government policies that have made legal representation difficult for Guantanamo prisoners - reduced access to clients - military commission defense lawyers - civilian defense lawyers - civilian habeas lawyers - habeas corpus rights for detainees - habeas petitions.

[...]public defenders usually have superior experience and comfort in the courtroom due to the demands of the practice. Whether because of clients' negative past experience or cultural stigma, public defenders must earn the trust and respect automatically accorded to the private bar. [...]that happens, public defenders may expect an unfair share of personal conflict and stress in their relationship with their clients. Sometimes, when we let the client speak, we are not so much listening as we are waiting for our next turn to talk. [...]even if the client has ridiculous beliefs about the law or information that is unreliable or irrelevant, by not taking time to show the client you are willing to listen, your actions are conforming to the client's presuppositions about a \"public defender\"-that is, you have your own agenda that you are going to push even if contrary to the best interests of the client.