In this article, I urge courts to “constitutionalize” the excessive caseload problem via two steps of their own. First, courts explicitly should recognize that excessive caseloads create unethical conflicts of interest for the public defenders laboring under them. Second, courts should equate excessive caseload conflicts with joint representation conflicts. Once viewed as that type of conflict, excessive caseloads then would be evaluated under Sullivan’s “adverse effect” test instead of under Strickland’s more stringent “actual prejudice” test. Under Sullivan, the most egregious excessive caseload conflicts could be deemed unconstitutional. As a result, courts effectively could require states to do what few legislatures are willing to do on their own—finally provide adequate funding for indigent representation consistent with Gideon’s promise.

For decades, the answer has been: “There can be no privacy in that which is already public.” However, given recent technological developments (e.g., cell phone cameras and YouTube), some scholars suggest that the law sometimes should restrict the exposure of truthful information shared in public. Like the police who claim to need privacy to do their job, these scholars claim that people need privacy in public in order to feel dignified and to feel comfortable developing new ideas. In their pragmatic balance, these privacy-related needs trump exposure-related benefits.

In this Article, I argue that these scholars have overstated privacy-related harms and understated exposure-related benefits. After documenting and correcting these errors, I show how the proper balance favors exposure over privacy in all but a few special cases. Ultimately, I conclude that the law should continue to protect the mass exposure of truthful yet embarrassing information via the “no privacy in public” rule. Otherwise, we risk sacrificing the many benefits of exposure—including those resulting from exposure of police misconduct—on the altar of a mythical right to obscurity.

Although allocating influence conflicts occur frequently in practice (and with particular frequency in administrative law practice), primary legal ethics sources do not explicitly address them. Similarly, although a few scholars have noted individual problems that possibly could qualify as allocating influence conflicts, no scholarship has explained how to identify allocating influence conflicts or, perhaps more importantly, how to address them ethically. This lack of guidance means that many conflicts of interest are occurring without proper identification by the affected lawyer and without effective oversight from lawyers charged with enforcing ethical standards. In turn, the practical harm to clients generally is the same harm associated with all other conflicts of interest — the loss of loyalty, independent judgment, and zealous advocacy from one’s lawyer.

Part I of this Article defines an allocating influence conflict. In addition to providing a basic definition, it describes the circumstances in which these conflicts typically emerge, and distinguishes the allocating influence problem from other comparatively benign resource-allocation conflicts. Part II of this Article demonstrates the pressing need to address allocating influence conflicts given their prevalence and their harmful effects on both clients and the profession. Part III demonstrates that existing ethics sources, though lacking direct recognition of allocating influence conflicts, provide the proper foundation for addressing them. Part IV addresses how to resolve allocating influence conflicts, first by showing how allocating influence conflicts fit within the existing conflict of interest framework and, second, by suggesting specific revisions to the comments to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.