Dru Stevenson, Professor of Law

In my Professional Responsibility course, I cover the Model Rules in order of how heavily tested they are on the MPRE, which happens to correlate to the difficulty or complexity of the rules.  Here, for convenient reference, I have posted an index of all my videos explaining the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC), the Code of Judicial Conduct (CJC), some recent ABA ethics opinions, and a few famous cases about legal ethics. The videos average around 15 minutes each. Grouping / Rule Number Video Title (Duration) Video Link Model Rules Rule 1.1 Rule 1.1 Competence (11:28) https://youtu.be/_4X-FrCchXk Rule 1.2 Rule 1.2 part 1 (Scope of Rep & Allocating Authority (11:05) https://youtu.be/wNHYUM83ocg Rule 1.2 Rule 1.2 part 2 The Comments (13:58) https://youtu.be/nlUNfHSVEao Rule 1.2 Rule 1.2 part 3 Crime...

Most people think of academic research as a quiet conversation between professors in dusty journals. But in the world of the law, a single article can sometimes become the silent engine driving a major court decision. You may know the headlines of a landmark case, but you rarely hear the rest of the story —the specific scholarship the judges leaned on to reach their conclusion. As a tenured professor at STCL Houston, my career has been defined by a deep dive into the intersections of history, administrative law, and firearm policy. Over the last two decades, I have found that true expertise isn't just about writing papers; it’s about providing the intellectual framework that courts use to navigate complex social issues. Whether it's the 9th Circuit's en banc look at felon-in-possession laws or the Washington Supreme Court's analysis of jury selection, these citations represent more than just a footnote. They are a sign of authority and a demonstration of the trust t...

Imagine you are in a high-stakes competition—perhaps a game of chess or a professional sports match. You’ve trained for years and you know the rules by heart. But as the match begins, you realize something unsettling: your opponent has a playbook you’ve never seen. In fact, they have a library of thousands of past matches that you aren't allowed to look at. They can cite these past moves to the referee to win the game, while you are left guessing in the dark. For decades, this wasn’t a metaphor; it was the reality for immigration lawyers in the United States. Every year, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issues tens of thousands of decisions. Most of them are "unpublished," meaning they aren't printed in the official law books. But the government’s lawyers had them. They could search them, find the ones that helped their case, and use them against immigrants who had no way of seeing the "secret law" being used against them. In 2021, a group of legal ai...

What happens when an unstoppable force meets a bureaucratic wall? For years, the legal battle between the NRA and Maria Vullo was framed as a grand constitutional showdown—a fight for the very soul of the First Amendment. But if you look closer, the story isn’t just about free speech. It’s about the "efficiency of litigation." We often think of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of truth, but in this case, the clock simply ran out. With the recent denial of cert, a decade-long crusade ended not with a bang, but with a ledger. It turns out that in the world of high-stakes law, the most expensive victory is the one you never actually win. I’ve unpacked the "rest of the story" regarding the NRA’s unsuccessful retaliatory litigation over at the Duke Center for Firearms Law. Read the full analysis here: In the End, Vullo Prevails Against the NRA

If you want to know what kept lawyers awake at night over the last six years, don't look at the headlines. Look at the Ethics Opinions.  In 2020, the ABA was worried about how we work from our kitchen tables (Op. 20-495). By 2024, they were worried about whether our computers were lying to us (Op. 24-512). And just this month, with Op. 521, they’ve turned the lens back on the judges themselves—reminding us that the 'appearance of impropriety' isn't just a courtroom standard; it’s a management standard. I compiled a list of all the formal ethics opinions from the American Bar Association from 2020 onward (up to today, Feb. 24, 2026). I have hyperlinks to download the opinions free online. ·        ABA Formal Op. 26-521 The Judicial Canons of Ethics Applicability to the Administrative and Supervisory Role of a Judge ·        ABA Formal Op. 26-520 A Lawyer’s Obligation to Convey Information to a Former Client or Successor C...