Bounty Unethical For Lawyers Whistleblowing With Confidential Info

The Dodd-Frank Act allows lawyers to blow the whistle on clients violating securities laws using confidential information, but an ethics opinion from a committee of the New York County Lawyers’ Association said any disclosure of confidential information must be for the purpose of preventing wrongdoing, and the lawyer can’t collect a bounty. The issue was whether the prospect of the bounty would “tend to cloud a lawyer’s professional judgment.” The opinion applies to both outside and in-house attorneys.