Full Time Faculty

KEVIN MOHR

Professor of Law

kmohr@wsulaw.edu

DEGREES

J.D., Yale Law School
M.S., University of Wisconsin
B.A., Harpur College

COURSES

Contracts | Intellectual Property | Professional Responsibility

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Mohr is an authority on legal ethics and professional responsibility. He is a former Chair and Special Advisor to the State Bar of California’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct and is currently the Consultant to the State Bar of California’s Special Commission for the Revision of the California Rules of Professional Conduct. He is also a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee and the Peter M. Elliott Inn of Court.

After practicing transactional law in Wisconsin, Professor Mohr clerked for the late United States District Judge John S. Rhoades of San Diego. Following his clerkship, Professor Mohr practiced intellectual property law in Los Angeles. He has been teaching law at Western State College of Law for over twenty years. He is a former Chair and Special Advisor to the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct and was also Chair of the State Bar’s Task Force on AB1101, which was responsible for drafting Rule of Professional Conduct 3-100, which provides for a narrow exception to the lawyer’s duty of confidentiality when disclosure is necessary to prevent a crime likely to result in death or substantial bodily harm. He is current the Consultant to the State Bar of California’s Special Commission for the Revision of the California Rules of Professional Conduct and is also a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee. He is a past President, and currently is a Master of the Peter M. Elliott Inn of Court. Professor Mohr was Articles Editor for the Yale International Law Journal Evidence Practice.

PUBLICATIONS

• At the Interface of Patent and Trademark Law: Should a Product Configuration Disclosed In a Utility Patent Ever Qualify for Trade Dress Protection? 19 HAST. COMMUN. & ENTER. L.J. 341 (1997).
• Legal Ethics And A Civil Action, 23 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 283 (Fall 1999).
• California’s Duty of Confidentiality: Is It Time for a Life-Threatening Criminal Act Exception? 39 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 307 (Spring 2002).
• Confidentiality: A Sacrosanct Duty That Must Be Honored, CAL. BAR J. (August 2003).
• Giving California A Seat At The National Table of Ethics, Cal. Bar J. (October 2006).
• The Work of the State Bar’s Rules Revision Commission: A Progress Report, 30 Pub. L.J. (Summer 2007).
• ANNOTATED MODEL RULES of PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT (ABA 6th Ed. 2007) (contributing editor for annotations for Rules 1.13 and 5.4).
• Successive Representation Conflicts and The Substantial Relationship Test In California, 35 Western State L.Rev. 305 (2008).
• Legal Ethics and Lawyer Web Sites, Part I, 25 CEB Cal Bus Law Prac 133 (Fall 2010).
• Legal Ethics and Lawyer Web Sites, Part II, 26 CEB Cal Bus Law Prac 25 (Winter 2011).
• LEGAL ETHICS: RULES, STATUTES AND COMPARISONS (Lexis-Nexis 2011) (with Richard Zitrin).
• Unwaivable Conflicts of Interest, L.A. County Bar Update (July 2012).