Opinion 69-5
FLORIDA BAR ETHICS OPINION
OPINION 69-5
May 23, 1970
Advisory ethics opinions are not binding.
A member of the teaching faculty of a law school may properly permit his holding of a J.D.
degree to be reflected in a faculty listing in university or law school publications without further
explanation or date of award.
Canon:
Opinion:
27
68-28
Chairman MacDonald stated the opinion of the committee:
In the light of our Opinion 68-28 [since withdrawn], a member of The Florida Bar who is
a member of the teaching faculty of a law school inquires as to the propriety of a listing of
degrees possessed by various administrative officers and members of the faculty, including
himself, in publications of the university or of the law school. More particularly, he inquires if it
is appropriate to list the J.D. degree without further explanation or date of award.
Our Opinion 68-28, issued to a practicing member of The Florida bar, inter alia related to
the manner in which a description of the J.D. degree which had replaced an LL.B. degree could
be noted in a legal directory wherein a date of award was necessarily a part of the listing. In
order to avoid any misleading connotations, we stated in 68-28 the manner in which the
circumstances of the award of the J.D. degree could be most conveniently and properly presented
in a legal directory. The present question does not involve any possibility of a misleading
reference to the date of award of the J.D. degree because the proposed publication states no more
than that the person listed has the J.D. degree without mention of date. This being a truism, we
see no necessity for the particular listing in question to further reflect that the J.D. degree was
awarded in place of the LL.B. degree.