Concept
Rule 5.1 and Rule 5.2 Together
Subordinate lawyer responsibility (Rule 5.2)
Rule 5.1 and Rule 5.2 Together
Rule 5.2(a) answers the subordinate's question: a lawyer is bound by the Rules of Professional Conduct even when the lawyer acted at another person's direction.1 Rule 5.1 asks the same question of the supervisor. The two Rules sit at opposite ends of one reporting line and impose separate duties on separate people, so a lawyer's exposure under one does not turn on the result under the other. This section sets them side by side to show how they interact, and it touches Rule 5.1 only where it bears on the subordinate.
Each lawyer answers for the choices that lawyer controls. The supervisor controls the instruction given and the oversight the work receives, and Rule 5.1 holds the supervisor to account for those choices. The subordinate controls whether to perform an act the Rules forbid, and Rule 5.2 holds the subordinate to account for that one. Because each duty attaches to the lawyer's own conduct, one lawyer's liability neither cancels nor shrinks the other's.
The clearest pairing arises when a supervisor orders the improper act. One disciplinary opinion separates two kinds of supervisory exposure. Paragraph (c) of Rule 5.1 reaches the supervisor who directed, ratified, or knew of the violation. Paragraph (b) reaches the supervisor who did none of those things but failed to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the other lawyer conformed to the Rules.2 A supervisor who orders the violation answers for the order, and the subordinate who obeys answers for the act.
The supervisor's own duty can also produce a sanction when nobody gave an order, and this shows how independent the two tracks are. Rule 5.1(b) requires a lawyer with direct supervisory authority over another lawyer to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the other lawyer conforms to the Rules. The comment adds that a supervisor may violate paragraph (b) even though there was no direction, ratification, or knowledge of the violation.3 To sanction under paragraph (b), the court must make three findings: that the lawyer had direct supervisory authority over the offending lawyer, that the supervised lawyer failed to conform to the Rules, and that the supervisor failed to make reasonable efforts to ensure the supervised lawyer followed them.4 Each finding concerns the supervisor's conduct, and none asks what defense the subordinate might have. Who counts as a lawyer with direct supervisory authority belongs to the reading on Rule 5.1.
The independence runs the other way too.
Rule 5.2(b) offers a narrow shelter. A subordinate lawyer does not violate the Rules by acting in accordance with a supervisory lawyer's reasonable resolution of an arguable question of professional duty.5 Okafor received no resolution from anyone, because the filing went around the supervisor's procedures, so there was nothing to follow. The shelter protects only a subordinate who acted on a supervisor's reasonable resolution, and it never turns on how well the supervisor performed under Rule 5.1.