Two events within the space of seven days – one occurring in the burnished boardrooms of biglaw and the other in the august alcoves of academia – offer a cautionary lesson for all lawyers.

Dewey & LeBoeuf, created in 2007 in the largest law firm merger in history, is encouraging its partners to “seek out alternative opportunities.” This is legal-speak for “Get out now!” as the office walls collapse.

Meanwhile, Hastings College of Law in California announced a 20 percent cut in its enrollment. The dean said the school had been cranking out more students than available jobs.

At first glance, these news items might seem unrelated. They happened, after all, at opposite ends of the professional spectrum. Law school is a place where lawyers are made, and Dewey & LeBoeuf was a place for lawyers who had made it.

 But scratch the surface and a common thread emerges: less is sometimes more.

Dewey & LaBoeuf was a legal colossus. It had worldwide offices and an international practice. It attracted superstar lawyers and clients alike. Its demise was due to a number of factors, some of which were unsurprising: a down economy, global financial uncertainty, defecting talent.

But one long-festering sore was the exorbitant compensation the firm paid its top partners. And it was not necessarily the best lawyers who got the biggest bucks, nor the ones doing the most work – it was the rainmakers, the celebrity lawyers who reeled in the juicy clients. This created growing frustration in the lower ranks of toilers who showed up every day and kept the train running on time. Eventually the whole thing blew up.

The situation at Hastings was simpler. Recently we wrote about the sharp decline in the number of students entering law school (click here). On the back end, law graduates are facing a shaky job market.

The logical solution, employed at Hastings and other institutions: dial back on incoming students.

“The critics of legal education are right,” said Frank Wu, the chancellor and dean of Hastings, in a USA Today article. “There are too many law schools and there are too many law students and we need to do something about that.”

These events teach a valuable lesson. Sometimes when we decrease one thing (salary of superstar lawyers, number of 1L students) we can increase something else (office morale, future job prospects).

Put this phenomenon to work in your firm today. Instead of trying to attract new clients, focus your energy on taking care of the ones you already have. Instead of tending to matters outside the office, look inside to make sure your employees are happy.

At first this might feel counterintuitive. We are conditioned, after all, to think that growth is good and more is better. We are told to prime the pump, push the envelope, think beyond the bun.

But sometimes we need to slow down. Or stop altogether. We need to peek inside the bun and ask, Where’s LaBoeuf?

Recently the public radio program This American Life had to issue a retraction of a story it ran in January.

The way it did so was instructive.

The story featured writer/actor Mike Daisey, whose one-man show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” exposed alleged abuses at the Foxconn plant in China, where Apple products are assembled. The show became the most popular episode on This American Life, with close to a million downloads and streams.

Soon after the segment aired, however, it was revealed that some of Daisey’s more outrageous claims were fabrications.

“We’re horrified to have let something like this onto public radio,” said host Ira Glass in a press release retracting the episode.

But This American Life did not stop there. It devoted an entire second show to dissecting the first one: detailing the inconsistencies, apologizing for the errors, and laying out the true facts.

Ouch. That could not have been fun. Disavowing its own blockbuster program and stripping it bare was like having your home run disqualified and having to run around the bases backwards because you used a corked bat – in front of a million upset fans.

It would have been tempting – and understandable – for This American Life to place all the blame on Daisey and admit only to having been suckered by a brilliant con man.

Instead, it stepped up and assumed full responsibility.

“We never should’ve put this on the air,” said Glass. “In the end this was our mistake.”

Think of what our profession would be like if all lawyers acted this way. If, when we make a mistake, we (a) acknowledge the error with speed and honesty, (b) get to the bottom of the matter, and (c) do whatever it takes to fix the problem.

Too often, though, we would rather point fingers than take ownership. It was somebody else’s fault. The client was a jerk. The case was a loser anyway. We waste time and energy with denials, rationalizations and defensiveness.

Not to mention our ethical obligations. The Rules of Professional Conduct impose upon us a duty of candor. We have a duty to tell the truth to our clients, colleagues and courts. Even if that truth hurts.

It starts with being truthful with ourselves. But unlike This American Life, we don’t have to do it alone. Groups like PALS, FRIENDS and BarCares offer confidential help. Experienced colleagues are always willing to lend an ear or a hand. Lawyers Mutual and the State Bar encourage us to report problems quickly – and might be able to help us fix them.

Everyone makes mistakes. In that respect we are all alike. How we deal with our mistakes makes all the difference.

After all, it’s not called “coming clean” for nothing.

We should all be so lucky as to have a client whose case garners the attention of the news media. However, such cases present opportunities for running afoul of the Rules of Professional Conduct and caution should be the watchword.  One need look no further than the infamous “Duke Lacrosse case” to see the danger of making extrajudicial statements to the Press. In its Order of Discipline, the State Bar chronicled 29 separate instances where Mike Nifong made extra-judicial statements to representatives of the news media in violation of Rule 3.6 of the North Carolina Rules of Professional Conduct.

Rule 3.6 governs what one can and cannot say to the Press about a case in which he or she is involved. Generally speaking, the Rule prohibits a lawyer from making statements that the lawyer knows or should know will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding.  (Rule 3.6(a)). And if the Rule applies to one, it applies to all. That is, no lawyer associated in a firm or governmental agency with a lawyer subject to paragraph (a) shall make a statement prohibited by paragraph (a).  Nonlawyer assistants must be cautioned as well. Any lawyer subject to Rule 3.6 must take reasonable measures to insure compliance of nonlawyer assistants (Comment [3]), and is himself subject to professional discipline under Rule 5.3 (RESPONSIBILITIES REGARDING NONLAWYER ASSISTANTS) for a violation of Rule 3.6 by a nonlawyer assistant. It should go without saying that a lawyer subject to Rule 3.6 may not employ agents to make statements that the lawyer is prohibited from making.

Paragraph (b) of Rule 3.6 identifies at least seven specific matters about which a lawyer’s statements would not be considered in violation of Rule 3.6. Such matters as the claim or offense involved, the identity of the person involved (except when prohibited by law), information contained in a public record, and other subjects that would not ordinarily be considered to present a “substantial likelihood of material prejudice.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Comment [5] identifies certain subjects that are more likely than not to have a material prejudicial effect on a proceeding. For example, subjects relating to the character, credibility, reputation, or criminal record of a party, suspect or witness; any opinion on the guilt or innocence of a defendant or suspect; or information that the lawyers know or should know would be inadmissible at trial and that would, if disclosed, likely prejudice the right to a fair trial.  One will find a number of the subjects identified in Comment [5] among the subjects about which Mr. Nifong commented to the news media, as recorded in the State Bar’s Order of Discipline.

Importantly, Rule 3.6(c) creates a “safe-harbor” provision: A lawyer may make a statement otherwise prohibited by Rule 3.6(a) if a reasonable lawyer would believe the statement is required to protect the client from the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity not initiated by the lawyer or the lawyer’s client.

Rule 3.6 embodies the tension between the First Amendment’s right of free speech and the lawyer’s obligations to the courts, the profession and to the administration of justice. The United States Supreme Court has noted that a State may regulate speech by lawyers representing clients in pending cases more readily than it may regulate the press. See e.g., Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada, 501 U.S. 1030 (1991). This does not mean, of course, that a lawyer forfeits all free speech rights about a case in which he or she is involved. Trained in the complexities of the law, and generally considered credible in regard to pending litigation in which they are involved, lawyers are a crucial source of information and opinion.  However, for the same reason, the lawyer’s right of free speech is proscribed to a greater degree than the general public because of the countervailing right to a fair and impartial trial.

If you have a client whose case is of public interest and you receive inquiries from the press, follow these rules:

1. Resist the temptation to become “The Story.” The Duke Lacrosse case is an example of a prosecutor getting caught up in the sensationalism and fervor of a “national” story. Don’t let your 15 minutes of fame become the seemingly never-ending, nightmare of an ethics inquiry. 

2.    “Just say ‘no.’” The best advice is to make no comment about a case in which you are involved. If you cannot manage that, review Rule 3.6 before you make any comment, write out your comment tailoring it what is allowed under the Rule, and then read it. “Off the cuff” comments are almost guaranteed to get you in trouble.

3.    If a statement is required to protect your client from the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity not caused by you or your client, remember to limit your statement to such information as is reasonably necessary to mitigate the recent adverse publicity. The safe-harbor provision of Rule 3.6(c) is not a license to say anything. Again, avoid “off the cuff” statements. Write out your comments and stick to your script.