The Practising Law Institute is offering a webcast of a live presentation from San Francisco entitled Serving Clients With Diminished Capacity: Ethics Issues in Legal Services and Pro Bono Practice 2025 on April 18, 2025 from 12:30 PM-2:45 PM Eastern.

Registration: $99.00

Full scholarships and discounts to attend PLI programs are widely available to attorneys working in nonprofit/legal services organizations; pro bono attorneys; government attorneys; judges and judicial law clerks; law professors and law students; senior attorneys (age 65 and over); law librarians and paralegals who work for nonprofit/legal services organizations; unemployed attorneys; and others with financial hardships.

All eligible attendees are urged to complete and submit a PLI Scholarship Application.
https://www.pli.edu/probono/pbscholarship

Why You Should Attend

Lawyers in many practice areas, including pro bono lawyers and nonprofit legal services providers, have clients who may have diminished capacity. This program will address the challenges and ethical issues lawyers face when representing individuals with diminished capacity due to conditions such as intellectual and developmental disabilities, dementia, and psychiatric disabilities. The panel will explore ethical issues that lawyers must address and offer approaches and strategies that lawyers may consider in carrying out representation in these circumstances.

What You Will Learn

After completing this program, participants will be able to:

• Consider and implement strategies for strengthening the capacity of clients with disabilities through reasonable accommodations and effective communication
• Recognize and understand the confidentiality concerns that can arise when working with clients with diminished capacity
• Manage complex conflicts and communications issues 
• Navigate the duty of loyalty
• Assist clients with diminished capacity in a variety of contexts
• Apply and practice these newly developed concepts and skills through hypothetical fact patterns to illustrate how these ethical questions arise in legal services and pro bono practice settings

Who Should Attend

Pro bono volunteers at law firms and corporate law departments, legal aid and nonprofit attorneys, law students, solo and small firm practitioners, social service providers working with legal services, along with attorneys in any practice setting who work with clients who may have diminished capacity, would benefit from attending.