Bruce Green

Bruce A. Green is the Louis Stein Chair at Fordham Law School, where he directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. He joined the Fordham faculty full time in 1987 after teaching as an adjunct associate professor. He currently teaches a course in professional responsibility and seminars in ethics in criminal advocacy and access to justice.  He is a prolific and frequently-cited scholar. 

Professor Green's work with the Stein Center has included helping to establish and organize a biannual Legal Ethics Schmooze, an annual Criminal Justice Ethics Schmooze, and an annual Access to Justice Roundtable. For more than 25 years, he has collaborated with the Fordham Law Review to produce an annual publication on the legal profession, and he has also often collaborated with the Fordham Urban Law Journal.

Through the Stein Center he has organized a host of other conferences, colloquia and symposia, book talks, CLE programs, and other events including the International Legal Ethics Conference (ILEC) held at Fordham Law in 2016. 

Professor Green has engaged in many professional activities through bar associations and other professional organizations. Currently, Professor Green chairs both the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination drafting committee. He is also a member and past chair of the NY State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics.

He previously chaired the ABA Criminal Justice Section, the ABA Criminal Justice Standards Committee, the NYC Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics, and the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility. He also co-chaired the ethics committees of the ABA Litigation Section and Criminal Justice Section.  He was the Reporter to both the ABA Task Force on Attorney-Client Privilege and the ABA Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice.  He also served as an officer of the International Association of Legal Ethics.  

While at Fordham, Professor Green has also engaged in various part-time public service, including as a member of the NYC Conflicts of Interest Board, as a member of the attorney disciplinary committee in Manhattan, as Associate Counsel in the office of the Iran/Contra prosecutor, and as a consultant and special investigator for the NYS Commission on Government Integrity. He has also contributed frequently to amicus briefs relating to legal ethics and criminal law and has become a frequently-quoted expert in the media on these subjects.

Before coming to Fordham, Professor Green was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, where he served as Chief Appellate Attorney, and he was a judicial law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall and Circuit Judge James L. Oakes. 
In 2018, Professor Green received the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award, given by the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility.

Selected Publications

• Under Political Pressure: How Courts and Congress Can Help Prosecutors Seek Justice, 135 Yale LJ.F. 138 (2025) (with Rebecca Roiphe)

• Replacing This Old House: Certifying and Regulating New Legal Services Providers, 76 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol’y 45 (2025) (with Ellen Murphy)
  

• Public Confidence, Judges, and Politics On and Off the Bench, 87 Law & Contemp. Prob. 183 (2024) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
  
• Good Lawyers, Good Sports?: The Professional Identity of Sports Lawyers Representing Not-for-Profit Entities, 11 Texas A&M Law Review 1019 (2024)
  
  
• Why State Courts Should Authorize Non-Lawyers to Practice Law, Fordham Law Review, 91 Fordham L. Rev. 1249 (2023)
  
  
• Lawyers and the Lies They Tell, 69 Wash. U. J. Law & Pol’y 37 (2022) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
  
  
• Impeaching Legal Ethics, 49 Fla. St. Univ. L. Rev. 447 (2022) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
  
  
• ABA Model Rule 8.4(g), Discriminatory Speech and the First Amendment, 50 Hofstra L. Rev. 543 (2022) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
  
  
• Should Victims’ Views Influence Prosecutors’ Decisions?, 87 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1127 (2022) (with Brandon P. Ruben)
  
  
• Selectively Disciplining Advocates, 54 Conn. L. Rev. 151 (2022)

• [email protected], 18 Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 265 (2021) (with Carole Silver), Technocapital@BigLaw.com by Carole Silver, Bruce A. Green :: SSRN

• Who Should Police Politicization of the DOJ?, 35 Notre Dame J. L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y 671 (2021) (with Rebecca Roiphe) 

• Bar Authorities and Prosecutors(Chapter 15), forthcoming in Oxford Handbook on Prosecutors and Prosecution (Ronald W. Wright et al., ed. 2021)

• When Prosecutors Politick: Progressive Law Enforcers Then and Now, 110 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 719 (2020) (with Rebecca Roiphe)

• May Class Counsel Also Represent Lead Plaintiffs?, 72 Florida L. Rev. 1083 (2020)(with Andrew Kent)

• Victims’ Rights from a Restorative Perspective, 17 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 293 (2020) (with Lara Bazelon)

• Should Criminal Justice Reformers Care About Prosecutorial Ethics Rules?, 58 Duquesne L. Rev. 249 (2020) (with Ellen Yaroshefsky)

• Restorative Justice from Prosecutors’ Perspective, 88 Fordham L. Rev. 2287 (2020) (with Lara Bazelon)

• A Fiduciary Theory of Prosecution, 69 Am. U. L. Rev. 805 (2020) (with Rebecca Roiphe)

• The Supreme Court's Supervisory Authority over Federal Criminal Cases: The Warren Court Revolution That might have Been, 49 Stetson L. Rev. 241 (2020)
• Punishment Without Process: “Victim Impact” Proceedings for Dead Defendants, Fordham Law Review Online, vol. 88 (2019) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
• Regulating Prosecutors' Courtroom Misconduct, 50 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 797 (2019)
• Prosecutorial Discretion: The Difficulty and Necessity of Public Inquiry, 123 Dickinson L. Rev. 589 (2019)
• Prosecutors in the Court of Public Opinion, 57 Duquesne L. Rev. 271 (2019)
• Judicial Activism in Trial Courts, 4 N.Y.U. Ann. Survey of Am. Law 365 (2019) with Rebecca Roiphe)
• May Federal Prosecutors Take Direction from the President?, 87 Fordham L. Rev. 1817 (2019) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
• Can the President Control the Department of Justice?, 70 Ala. L. Rev. 1 (2018) (with Rebecca Roiphe
• The Right to Two Criminal Defense Lawyers, 69 Mercer L. Rev. 675 (2018)
• The Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Legal Ethics, The Professional Lawyer, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 3-7 (2018)
• May Lawyers Assist Clients in Some Unlawful Conduct?: A Response to Paul Tremblay, 70 Fla. L. Rev. F. 1 (2018)
• Urban Policing and Public Policy – the Prosecutor’s Role, 51 Georgia L. Rev. 1179 (2017)
• Prosecutorial Ethics in Retrospect, 30 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 461 (2017)
• The Price of Judicial Economy in the US, 7 Oñati Socio-Legal Series no.4 (2017)
• Rethinking Prosecutors’ Conflicts of Interest, 58 Boston College Law Review 463 (2017) (with Rebecca Roiphe)
• Prosecutorial Accountability 2.0, 92 Notre Dame Law Review 51 (2016) (with Ellen Yaroshefsky)
• Disciplinary Regulation of Prosecutors as a Remedy for Abuses of Prosecutorial Discretion: A Descriptive and Normative Analysis, 14 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 143 (2016) (with Samuel Levine)
• Should There Be a Specialized Ethics Code for Death-Penalty Defense Lawyers?, 29 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 527 (2016)
• Candor in Criminal Advocacy, 44 Hofstra L. Rev. 1105 (2016)
• Access to Criminal Justice: Where Are the Prosecutors?, 3 Tex. A&M L. Rev. 515 (2016)
• The Lawyer as Lover: Are Courts Romanticizing the Lawyer-Client Relationship?, 32 Touro L. Rev. 139 (2016)
• Legal Discourse and Racial Justice: The Urge to Cry “Bias!”, 28 Georgetown J. Legal Ethics 177 (2015)
• Prosecutors’ Disclosure Obligations in the U.S., 42 Hitotsubashi J. L. & Politics 51 (2014) (with Peter Joy)
• Judicial Regulation of US Civil Litigators, 16 Legal Ethics 306 (2013)
• Gideon’s Amici: Why Do Prosecutors So Rarely Defend the Rights of the Accused?, 122 Yale L.J. 2336 (2013)
• The Right to Plea Bargain With Competent Counsel After Cooper and Frye: Is the Supreme Court Making the Ordinary Criminal Process “Too Long, Too Expensive, and Unpredictable . . . in Pursuit of Perfect Justice”?, 51 Duquesne L. Rev. 735 (2013)
• Lawyers’ Professional Independence: Overrated or Undervalued?, 46 Akron L. Rev. 599 (2013)
• The Attorney-Client Privilege – Selective Compulsion, Selective Waiver and Selective Disclosure: Is Bank Regulation Exceptional?, 2013 Journal of the Professional Lawyer 85 (2013)
• Unregulated Corporate Internal Investigations: Achieving Fairness for Corporate Constituents, 54 B.C. L. Rev. 73 (2013) (with Ellen S. Podgor)
• Federal Criminal Discovery Reform: A Legislative Approach, 64 Mercer L. Rev. 639 (2013)
• Rehabilitating Lawyers: Perceptions of Deviance and its Cures in the Lawyer Reinstatement Process, 40 Fordham Urb. L.J. 139 (2012) (with Jane Moriarty)
• The Flood of U.S. Lawyers: Natural Fluctuation or Professional Climate Change?, 19 Int’ J. Legal Prof. 193 (2012)
• Prosecutors and Professional Regulation, 25 Georgetown J. Legal Ethics 873 (2012)
• The Community Prosecutor: Questions of Professional Discretion, 47 Wake Forest L. Rev. 285 (2012) (with Alafair S. Burke)
• Developing Standards of Conduct for Prosecutors and Criminal Defense Lawyers, 62 Hastings L.J. 1093 (2011)
• Prosecutors’ Ethical Duty of Disclosure In Memory of Fred Zacharias, 48 San Diego L. Rev. 57 (2011)
• Rationalizing Judicial Regulation of Lawyers, 70 Ohio St. L.J. 73 (2009) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• The Duty to Avoid Wrongful Convictions: A Thought Experiment in the Regulation of Prosecutors, 89 Boston University L. Rev. 1 (2009) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• The Market for Bad Legal Scholarship: William H. Simon’s Experiment in Professional Regulation, 60 Stanford L. Rev. 1605 (2008)
• “The U.S. Attorneys Scandal” and the Allocation of Prosecutorial Power, 69 Ohio St. L.J. 187 (2008) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• Permissive Rules of Professional Conduct, 91 Minn. L. Rev. 265 (2006) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• Reconceptualizing Advocacy Ethics, 74 George Washington L. Rev. 1 (2005) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• Prosecutorial Neutrality, 2004 Wisconsin L. Rev. 837 (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• Federal Court Authority to Regulate Lawyers: A Practice in Search of a Theory, 56 Vand. L. Rev. 1303 (2003) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• Prosecutorial Ethics as Usual, 2003 Illinois L. Rev. 1573
• Regulating Federal Prosecutors’ Ethics, 55 Vand. L. Rev. 381 (2002) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• The Disciplinary Restrictions on Multidisciplinary Practice: Their Derivation, Their Development, and Some Implications for the Core Values Debate, 84 Minn. L. Rev. 1115 (2000)
• The Uniqueness of Federal Prosecutors, 88 Georgetown L.J. 207 (2000) (with Fred C. Zacharias)
• Why Should Prosecutors “Seek Justice”?, 26 Fordham Urb. L.J. 609 (1999)
• The Criminal Regulation of Lawyers, 67 Fordham L. Rev. 327 (1998)
• The Role of Personal Values in Professional Decisionmaking, 11 Geo. J. of Legal Ethics 19 (1997)
• Whose Rules of Professional Conduct Should Govern Lawyers in Federal Court and How Should the Rules Be Created?, 64 George Washington L. Rev. 460 (1996)
• Lethal Fiction: The Meaning of “Counsel” in the Sixth Amendment, 78 Iowa L. Rev. 433 (1993)
• “Power, Not Reason”: Justice Marshall's Valedictory and the Fourth Amendment in the Supreme Court's 1990-91 Term, 70 N.C.L. Rev. 373 (1992)
• Zealous Representation Bound: The Intersection of the Ethical Codes and the Criminal Law, 69 N.C.L. Rev. 687 (1991)
• “Through a Glass, Darkly”: How the Court Views Motions to Disqualify Criminal Defense Lawyers, 89 Colum. L. Rev. 1201 (1989)

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Selected Professional Activities

American Bar Association:
   Commission on the American Jury Project: member, 2006-2008
   Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice: reporter, 2000-2002
   Coordinating Group on Bioethics and the Law: member, 1997-2003
   Criminal Justice Section: Chair, 2010-2011
   Section of Litigation: Council member, 2004-2007
   Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility: member, 2008-2011
   Task Force on the Attorney-Client Privilege: reporter, 2004-2010
   Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: consultant, 1991-1992

Association of the Bar of the City of New York: Executive Committee: 2010 to 2014

International Association of Legal Ethics: Director, 2010-13

National Conference of Bar Examiners: Member of MPRE Drafting Committee, 2001 to present

New York County Lawyers’ Association: Director, 2004-2007, 2008-2012

New York State Bar Association:
   House of Delegates member, 2003-2007, 2009 to 2015
   Committee on Professional Ethics: Chair, 1998-2001; member, 1991 to present

• Criminal Law
• Professional Responsibility: Ethics in Criminal Advocacy
• Public Interest Lawyer Advanced Seminar