Carole Buckner, Esq.
CAROLE J. BUCKNER is a Partner and General Counsel at Procopio. Her practice focuses on legal ethics, professional responsibility and the law of lawyering, including advising lawyers and law firms, and rendering expert opinions. She also serves as an expert consultant on issues involving legal ethics including legal fees, billing, fee arrangements, conflicts of interest, fee sharing, referral fees, unauthorized practice of law, withdrawal from representation, modification of fee arrangements, client trust accounting, and other issues. Prior to joining Procopio, Carole was a sole practitioner in the field of legal ethics, issues involving professional responsibility, and the law of lawyering. Carole also served as dean of St. Francis School of Law. Carole has previously worked in litigation, as in-house counsel, as a federal prosecutor, and she has taught and worked in administration at multiple law schools. Carole was a member of the California State Bar’s Committee on Professionalism and Conduct (COPRAC) starting in 2005. She served as COPRAC chair in 2009-2010, and later as the Special Advisor to the Committee. Carole is a member and former Co-Chair of the Professionalism and Ethics Committee of the Orange County Bar Association. She is a member and former chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee (PREC). Carole is also a member of the San Diego County Bar Association’s Legal Ethics Committee. Carole has also spoken and written extensively on a wide variety of ethics related topics. Through COPRAC, the LACBA, SDCBA, OCBA, PLI, CEB, and other organizations, Carole has spoken at the State Bar’s Annual Ethics Symposiums, State Bar Annual Meetings, bar association MCLE programs, and in other venues on a wide variety of ethics related topics including attorneys’ fees, client trust accounting, conflicts of interest, confidentiality issues, screening, judicial recusal, lawyer advertising, collaborative law, prosecutorial misconduct, ethical issues arising from lawyer impairment, and many others. Carole has also participated as a panelist on the annual update on ethics-related cases. Also on behalf of COPRAC, Carole has closely monitored the work of the Commission on the Revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and has written and spoken on the new California Rules of Professional Conduct.