This summary is not the rule. The rule text controls.
Here's what this rule means for lawyers who work under someone else's direction, like junior associates at a law firm.
If you're a lawyer, you can't use the excuse "my boss told me to do it" to get out of trouble for breaking ethics rules. Every lawyer has to follow the rules of professional conduct on their own, even when someone above them gives instructions. Following orders doesn't protect you if those orders lead you to violate your ethical duties.
That said, the rule also gives some protection to junior lawyers. If there's a genuine gray area, a question where reasonable lawyers could disagree about what the right course of action is, and a supervising lawyer makes a reasonable call on that question, the junior lawyer can follow that instruction without getting in trouble. This only applies to real judgment calls on unclear issues, not to clear violations of the rules.
So the bottom line is this: junior lawyers still have to use their own judgment and can't blindly follow orders that clearly cross ethical lines. But when a situation is genuinely unclear and their supervisor makes a reasonable decision about how to handle it, the junior lawyer is protected for going along with that decision.
