DR 1-102

"DR 1-102" is the 266th episode of NBC's legal drama Law & Order, and the 13th episode of the 12th season.

Plot

Two women are found dead in an apartment by two men holding a party across the hall. The detectives track down a man who breaks into the apartments of young women who come into his hardware store to make copies of keys.

When the police attempt to arrest this man, he flees into a convenience store and takes a hostage at knife point. The police negotiator is unable to secure the hostage's release, and the man demands a lawyer or else he will kill the hostage. When Serena Southerlyn arrives at the scene, she agrees to go into the store to negotiate the release of the hostage as a lawyer, though she does not tell the man that she is with the district attorney's office.

The trial is quick, though because of Southerlyn's conflict of interest the man agrees to a plea bargain on a lesser charge.

Because Southerlyn did not identify herself as an assistant district attorney, she is considered to have deceived the man, and violated an ethics rule (Rule DR 1-102) and faces a disbarment proceeding. Jack McCoy, himself no stranger to disciplinary hearings, represents her at the hearing.

The panel recommends that Southerlyn be privately reprimanded, but not disbarred.