The Rules presume a larger legal context shaping the lawyer's role. That background includes court rules and statutes relating to matters of licensure, laws defining specific obligations of lawyers and independent and practical law in general. Observance with the Rules, as with all law in an open society, depends primarily upon understanding and voluntary compliance, secondarily upon support by gaze and public opinion and finally, when necessary, upon enforcement through disciplinary proceedings.
 The Rules do not exhaust the moral and ethical deliberations that should inform a lawyer, for no valuable human activity can be completely defined by legal rules. The Rules simply offer a structure for the ethical practice of law.
In addition, for reasons of determining the lawyer's authority and responsibility, principles of substantive law external to these Rules determine whether a client-lawyer relationship exists. Most of the duties fluent from the client-lawyer relationship connect only after the client has requested the lawyer to render legal services and the lawyer have agreed to do so. But there are some duties that may connect when the lawyer agrees to consider whether a client-lawyer relationship shall be established. Whether a client-lawyer relationship exists for any definite reason can depend on the circumstances and may be a question of fact.
Under various legal necessities, including constitutional, legal and common law, the responsibilities of government lawyers may include authority concerning legal matters that ordinarily reposes in the client in private client-lawyer relationships. A lawyer for a government agency may have authority on behalf of the government to decide upon settlement or whether to appeal from an unfavorable judgment. In addition, lawyers under the direction of these officers may be approved to represent several government agencies in intergovernmental legal controversies in conditions where a private lawyer could not represent multiple private clients. They also may have power to represent the "public interest" in circumstances where a personal lawyer would not be authorized to do so. These Rules do not nullify any such authority.
Collapse to comply with an obligation or prohibition imposed by a Rule is a basis for appealing the disciplinary process. The Rules suppose that corrective assessment of a lawyer's conduct will be made on the basis of the facts and circumstances as they existed at the time of the conduct in question and in recognition of the fact that a lawyer often has to act upon uncertain or incomplete evidence of the situation.
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