LEGAL ETHICS
The ethical choice is always the best choice. Always. Anything less is temporary and will ultimately collapse. Mr. Dickstein is proud to be regarded by his peers as deserving of the highest standing in ethics, the Martindale-Hubbell AV-Preeminent Rating. Whenever you think you might have an ethical problem — then you do have an ethical problem — and there is always an ethical solution to an ethical problem. But what is the ethical solution, exactly? It is often this: the hard choice, the one you know is right but appears to carry difficult short-term consequences. Mr. Dickstein frequently consults with Florida Bar Ethics counsel to identify the ethical rules and options available. Then he can make the best choice and be sure he can justify why he did so later. It is counter-intuitive, perhaps, that being ethical is also the way to be the most aggressive. Yet think about it: if you know you are being entirely ethical, you can then be completely confident, instead of being unsure. Mr. Dickstein has seen what happens to unethical lawyers. While working for the courts as a senior staff attorney, Mr. Dickstein sometimes had to watch these unethical lawyers be disciplined (lectured, fined, suspended, or even disbarred) by the judges. Mr. Dickstein observed how sad the judges were to have to punish these lawyers. Why didn't these unethical lawyers just do the right thing when they had the chance? The answer is that they did not think ahead. They did not do the mental work: identify the options and make the hard choices. These unethical lawyers just did what they thought was enough — and what they could “get away with.” That is not the right way to practice law. The right way to practice law is to maintain the highest ethical standards. Nothing less is acceptable. Legal ethics are therefore a part of every decision at Dickstein Law.