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Anyone interested in the current doings of the antibiotics antitrust litigation in the spring of 1975l could easily have found seating in the public section of the courtroom of Judge Miles A. Lord in Minneapolis. An instantly striking aspect of the courtroom was that, in contrast to the scattering of young attorneys and an occasional curious onlooker in the public section, there were dozens of people crowded into the area around the central raised bench on which Judge Lord sits. Several attorneys represenr: the defendants-five of the major drug manufacturing companies in the United States. Numerous counsel for the plaintiffs were grouped around a large table to Judge Lord's right. Clerks, court reporters, and marshals sat beneath the bench. The most remarkable feature of the crowd, however, was the presence of two jury boxes containing two separate juries. In fact, two different trials in six different cases were proceeding at once. “Jury One” was hearing evidence in actions brought by the United States, two national classes (one of insurance companies and the other of union health and welfare funds), and a California medical group. “Jury TWQ” was hearing evidence in suits brought in behalf of competitors of the defendant drug companies. For the most part, the juries were hearing evidence common to both sets of cases. When evidence was introduced that was relevant to only one set of cases, the other jvry would be excused.
Attorney involvement in client perjury is a restive issue that does not admit of easy resolution. Many other issues are addressed by the Kutak Commission in its proposed revision of the American Bar Association's recommended rules of attorney conduct. But few have raised such a spirited professional and public debate as the Commission's broad proposal for required disclosure of client dishonesty. Whistle blowing by counsel is mandated in some instances, permitted in the attorney's discretion in others. Counsel for parties in negotiation are carefully circumscribed in presenting misleading information to others. And the lawyer whose client commits known perjury on the witness stand is under an explicit obligation to correct the perjury. All of these rules are part of the Commission's thematic development of a broad social dimension to the lawyer's work—a dimension that, in the Commission's view, requires more explicit recognition of the lawyer's obligations to third parties and to social institutions such as the courts to assist them in their work. The range of issues presented is very extensive, and the present review will deal only with the client perjury problem.
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