Candor Versus Advocacy: Courts' Use of Sanctions to Enforce the Duty of Candor toward the Tribunal

Abstract

The dilemma of when lawyers must cite adverse authority is one that arises from the long-recognized conflict between the dual roles of lawyers as advocates for clients and officers of the court. The debate usually has involved two considerations: the lawyer's ethical obligation to cite adverse authority to the court and the strategic considerations involved in dealing with adverse authority. This Article suggests that a third consideration has recently been added to the debate: that of a court's expectation of citation to adverse authority and that court's willingness to use its sanctions authority to enforce its expectation.