Ethics

Last year, I blogged about a controversial court opinion in New Jersey, which held that a lawyer had violated the rules of professional conduct because he ghostwrote a brief on behalf of a pro se litigant.  As I suggested in my post, I thought the court was unduly restrictive regarding the practice of ghostwriting.

Apparently, there were quite a few other people who felt the same way.  The New Jersey Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics has now issued an opinion stating that lawyers should be allowed to ghostwrite briefs, except "when such assistance is a tactic by a lawyer or party to gain advantage in litigation by invoking traditional judicial leniency toward pro se litigants while still reaping the benefits of legal assistance" or when the lawyer is "effectively in control of the final form and wording of the pleadings and conduct of the litigation."  Here's the story.