About the Course The lecture aims to give participants a concise overview of the Canons of Professional Responsibility in relation to litigation. As an introduction, the lecture will provide a brief review of the basic duties of lawyers to the courts, to their clients, to the legal profession, and to society. The lecture will then focus on the proper/improper behavior of lawyers in court and/or during litigation, from the perspective of legal ethics. Practical application of the Canons will be discussed as well as actual cases that illustrate proper/improper behavior of lawyers in litigation. The lecture will conclude with a survey of recent jurisprudence that illustrate how the Canons apply and how it should be understood whenever lawyers are engaged in litigation.
He is currently the Presiding Judge of Quezon City’s Regional Trial Court Branch 217. He is also a faculty at the College of Law, Manuel L. Quezon University teaching Alternative Dispute Resolution, Legal Profession, Statutory Construction, and Human Rights. Judge Villarama took his Masters of Law from Cornell University in 2014 where he represented his class as the Convocation Speaker. He graduated from Ateneo de Manila Law School where he also took his Masters of Law in International Law, Major in International Arbitration.