Pursuing Client Advocacy Within the Bounds of Civility and Professional Standards: What’s Zeal Got to Do With It? (Presented by the Federal Bar Association’s Professional Development Committee, Ethics Subcommittee)

In Vogt v. Walls Real Estate Co., 727 S.W.3d 813 (2025), a lawyer failed to appear for a civil trial set on a mutually agreed date. Judgment was entered against his client. The appellate court upheld the judgment, yet agreed a courtesy call would have been “the better practice.” Its authority: the Preamble, which ties “zealously” pursuing a client’s interests to “maintaining a professional, courteous, and civil attitude.”

The stakes are already concrete. Miss an agreed court date, and your client absorbs the judgment. Skip the courtesy call, and an appellate opinion names the omission. Treat the Lawyer’s Creed and the Preamble as aspirational only, and the discipline question is squarely in play. Push zeal past civility, and the duty to your client collides with your professional obligations.

Attendees leave able to spot conduct that may be viewed as a breach of professionalism. The session maps where professionalism rules overlap the ethics rules, tests the line against common hypotheticals from practice, and closes with related real-life case law. What you walk out with is a practitioner’s framework for when courtesy is optional — and when it is not.