Ethics
Legal Ethics Forum 
Covering Legal Ethics
Post Frequency: 3.5/day Last Entry: November 19, 2009 at 13:55:04 Recent Entries: 1248
Go to Legal Ethics Forum, find other Ethics blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Search
Posts
Update on file filching deputy: Judge gives deputy a chance to apologize, avoid jail
Posted on November 19, 2009The court's order is here. But, according to this story, no apology may be forthcoming.
Conflicts of interest within DOJ for lawyers who formerly represented detainees?ainees now in DOJ?
Posted on November 19, 2009This op-ed asks whether there are conflicts of interest within the DOJ for lawyers who formerly worked for detainees. Reading between the lines, it appears that recusals within the DOJ have been made on a case-by-case basis. The GOP senators...
NY news that you'd expect to hear coming out of Baltimore or Chicago
Posted on November 19, 2009According to Point of Law, "The ethics counsel to the New York state senate told senators to hand-deliver ethics filings, rather than mailing them, to avoid coverage under the federal mail fraud statute." (Hmm, what's the 1.2(d) analysis on that?)
ABA's "Ethics 20/20 Commission" announces Preliminary Issues Outline, seeks feedback.
Posted on November 19, 2009Outline here. Commission website here. Get your comments in by December 31, 2009. The three top-level issues in the preliminary list are: Issues that arise because US lawyers are regulated by [US] states but work increasingly across state and international...
Disciplined prosecutor's appeal may result in disbarment
Posted on November 18, 2009In the much-followed case of the prosecution of Santa Clara County prosecutor Ben Field, Field's appellate argument didn't go well. Two of the panel members questioned why Field hadn't been disbarred.
Ron Rotunda: "The Judicial Transparency, Judicial Ethics, and A Judicial Solution: An Inspector General for The Courts"
Posted on November 18, 2009Interesting idea; article here. Abstract:Many federal judges routinely fear criticism, but that fear is unwarranted. The public is rightly concerned that the procedure to investigate and discipline problem-judges is flawed, particularly in a few high-profile cases discussed in this article...
I'll Believe This When I See It
Posted on November 18, 2009Testifying before Congress today, Attorney General Eric Holder said the report of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility on the torture memos is "in its last stages" and should be released by the end of the month. As those...
Odds and ends (November 17, 2009)
Posted on November 17, 2009Chevron has filed a malicious prosecution claim against the lawyer who brought an environmental tort claim against Chevron. . . . . The former GC of Bank of America discusses his termination. . . . . Yet another case of...
California ready to approve new rules, including advance waivers, after some tinkering?
Posted on November 17, 2009Unfortunately the story is behind a reg wall, but that's the gist of Mike McKee's article. (Disclaimer: I'm not neutral on the issue of advance waivers and I'm quoted in the article.) Here's a fair use snippet from the article:...
The global law firm: the case of Singapore
Posted on November 17, 2009I'm interested in exploring how the globalization of the legal profession affects the level of interpersonal trust in the provision of legal services. Jay Krishnan's new paper, The Joint Law Venture: A Pilot Study, looks like a must-read for anyone...
Lynne Stewart conviction upheld
Posted on November 17, 2009More analysis later. Opinion here. Here's my original post regarding Stewart. Links to key parts of the trial. As you read commentary about whether her lawyering should be considered criminal conduct, please bear in mind that the crux of the...
Patricia Salkin: "2009 Ethical Considerations in Land Use"
Posted on November 15, 2009Patricia Salkin summarizes recent conflicts cases arising in law use practice.
Susan Saab Fortney: "Is it Educational Malpractice Not to Teach Comparative Legal Ethics?"
Posted on November 15, 2009After teaching legal ethics in Slovenia, Susan Saab Fortney wrote this short piece about teaching comparative legal ethics.
Margaret Tarkington on free speech to impugn judicial integrity
Posted on November 15, 2009Margaret Tarkington on, "A Free Speech Right to Impugn Judicial Integrity in Court Proceedings." Abstract: Throughout the United States, state and federal courts discipline and sanction attorneys who make disparaging remarks about the judiciary and thereby impugn judicial integrity...
"Erin Brokovich" lawyers face 9th Circuit disciplinary hearing
Posted on November 15, 2009Story here.
The future of Big Law School?
Posted on November 14, 2009The topic has been exploding in the blawgosphere. Larry Ribstein's paper inspired Erik Gerding's post, which prompted a reply by Ribstein and a post by the WSJ blog, and a reply by Gerding, along with a post by Rick Garnett...
Justice Alito downplays impact of ABA standards for capital defense function
Posted on November 13, 2009Interesting incident, which raises the issue of the degree to which ABA standards are binding, are meant to spur improvements, and/or are just aspirational goals.
from other sites (Nov 13, 2009)
Posted on November 13, 2009At the Ethical Quandary, news of a case upholding attorney client privilege for emails across a company account. I think that some cases might reach the opposite result, so it's a hot issue generally. . . . . Our very...
California ponders advance waivers; looks at bunch of proposed new rules
Posted on November 13, 2009A poorly researched article is here. On the contentious topic of advance waivers, the article is a caricature. In a complicated world, both corporate clients and law firms need to be able to discuss advance waivers and reach agreement --...
"We Made Political Mistakes. So Let's Fire the White House Counsel."
Posted on November 13, 2009Why exactly is Gregory Craig, White House Counsel, being forced out? This is very strange. He ordered the closing of Guantanamo, we're told. And he wrote an order banning torture. And he supported revelation of memoranda that describe aggressive interrogation...
Bill Henderson on outcome measures at law schools
Posted on November 12, 2009Bill would like to see more information gathered and published about legal education outcomes. So would I, and, I'm guessing, so would law school applicants, law students, and recent graduates.
Two Negotiation Ethics Questions
Posted on November 12, 2009In recent conversation with a group of lawyers, these two questions arose: a. Lawyers A and B are negotiating a big deal. B's client wants clause X, which is peripheral to the substance of the deal but something B's client...
from other sites . . . .
Posted on November 11, 2009Brian Leiter links to several posts about the late Fred Zacharias, whose untimely passing is a significant loss to our field. . . . . The Ethical Quandary discusses a new Oregon ethics opinion dealing with " the often frustrating...
Prof. John Yoo's appeal to the Ninth Circuit (Jose Padilla v. John Yoo)
Posted on November 11, 2009(Nod to Howard Bashman) Having a lost a motion to dismiss the civil claims by plaintiff Jose Padilla, John Yoo has now appealed to the Ninth Circuit. News article here. The brief attacks what it sees as the creation of...
The lawyer who will represent Major Hasan: John Galligan
Posted on November 10, 2009Profile here. If there is anyone in the US right now who is "friendless," as the old ethics phrase put it, it is Major Hasan.
New filing in Illinois case where prosecutors served subpoena regarding Northwestern Law students who worked for Innocence Project
Posted on November 10, 2009Via Instapundit, there is a new filing by the prosecutors, suggesting that in one instance, an investigator gave a cabbie $60, knowing that some of it would be handed back the the passenger, who was a witness in the matter....
NLJ top 250 firms drop 4% in lawyer headcount
Posted on November 09, 2009This article says that "the number of attorneys in 2009 [in the top 250 firms] sank to 126,669 lawyers, compared with 131,928 attorneys last year." In 2008, the number of attorneys increased by 4.3 percent" and the number of associates...
Anne Poulin: "Conflicts of Interest in Criminal Cases: Should the Prosecution Have a Duty to Disclose?"
Posted on November 09, 2009Article here, by Anne Poulin. Abstract: This article addresses two types of conflicts of interests that arise in criminal cases: 1) when defense counsel has an employment relation to the prosecutor?s office, and 2) when defense counsel faces criminal investigation...
Fred Zacharias
Posted on November 09, 2009[I am posting this memorial notice on behalf of Fred's friend Bruce Green -- BW] It is with sadness that I report the death of Professor Fred Zacharias on November 8, at the much too young age of 56, after...
"So, an estate plan [is patentable]?" asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "A tax avoidance method? How to resist a corporate takeover? All of these are patentable?"
Posted on November 09, 2009The media are reporting that the US Supreme Court was extremely skeptical today about business method patents, in the long-awaited and highly anticipated Bilski oral argument. Over the last several years, I've often been asked if legal techniques will be...
More details on the biglaw associate arrested for insider trading
Posted on November 08, 2009Details here. The prosecutors apparently have tape recorded phone calls implicating the accused.
When is moving a tortfeasor's assets a participation in fraud?
Posted on November 08, 2009An Iowa farmer shot and killer his neighbor, and, in anticipation of law suits, the farmer quickly began to shift assets, hide assets, and engage in a massive shell game -- all with the help of lawyers. At what point,...
Birther lawsuits
Posted on November 06, 2009Last week George Conk posted an entry on his blog (here) with respect to the New Jersey attorney who has filed a lawsuit claiming that Barack Obama is a "usurper" because he was not born in the United States. Conk...
Clicks, Clients, and Controversy: The Ethics of Paying for Client Leads
Posted on November 06, 2009Several states are asking whether a lawyer can pay a non-lawyer for each Internet-based client lead that the non-lawyer generates. Some state bar authorities, most notably Connecticut's, contend that such a payment is an unethical referral fee, whereas other states...
What Ever Happened to the Search for Truth?
Posted on November 06, 2009There was argument yesterday (Thursday) in the Supreme Court in Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, in which two men who have served 25 years of life sentences are suing two prosecutors in federal court for violating their constitutional rights by coaching...
Blogging as grounds to oppose pro hac vice application?
Posted on November 05, 2009The theory is that the blogging lawyers who seek pro hac admission are in violation of the trial publicity rule. (Hat tip to Ben Sheffner, at Copyrights & Campaigns)
Biglaw associate arrested in insider trading scandal
Posted on November 05, 2009Story here. It's only allegations and charges at this point, but we will try to follow it closely. (For those of you who remember the Ilan Reich affair, in which Reich, a biglaw associate, pled guilty to criminal insider trading...
Judge Posner on the modern economy for young lawyers
Posted on November 05, 2009Jump to the 20th minute. If you're familiar with the recent work of Bill Henderson and others, none of this will surprise you, but I enjoyed hearing Judge Posner's distinctive spin.
Deputy swipes document from defense counsel
Posted on November 04, 2009Amazing video. Stories here and here (with a nod to Reason blog). (If this doesn't get Monroe's blood boiling, I don't know what will.) At the subsequent hearing the deputy could not explain his conduct except to suggest that he...
Court Hears Arguments Today on Attorney Inexperience and Prosecutorial Immunity
Posted on November 04, 2009Two more lawyering cases will be argued at the Supreme Court today. Wood v. Allen raises an issue certain to resonate with new lawyers and those who supervise them: whether an attorney's inexperience may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Pottawattamie...
New Media in the Courtroom: Northern California Federal Courts conference
Posted on November 04, 2009Official site here. I'm there, and we've been encouraged to blog or tweet from the conference, in the federal building. (The security guards were a little surprised that we were allowed to bring electronic equipment upstairs.) If you have any...
Qualcomm: Outside lawyers blame the company
Posted on November 03, 2009This is big. In the much discussed Qualcomm matter, where the federal court referred six lawyers (including two second-year associates) to the state bar for possible discipline, it now appears that the outside lawyers will blame the client for misleading...
Kevin Michels on "Internal Corporate Investigations and the Truth"
Posted on November 03, 2009[Kevin Michels sends along this piece on internal corporate investigations.] Thanks for the invitation to guest blog at the Legal Ethics Forum. I am a regular reader and fan of the Forum. I am honored that the Forum featured my...
Dina Mishra: "When the Interests of Municipalities and Their Officials Diverge: Municipal Dual Representation and Conflicts of Interest in § 1983 Litigation"
Posted on November 02, 2009Interesting note topic. Abstract: In many cases, municipal attorneys defend both a municipality and a municipal official against § 1983 claims. Some defenses available to the two types of defendants are incompatible and may give rise to conflicts of interest...
If Philosophical Legal Ethics is the Answer, What is the Question?
Posted on November 01, 2009Co-blogger Alice Woolley poses that Jeopardy-like riddle in this article. The piece raises some of the same themes as Bill Simon's recent article (discussed last week), but with a notably different slant. Here's the abstract: Philosophical legal ethics, a sub-disicpline...
A Right to a Public Record's Metadata?
Posted on November 01, 2009There is such a right, according to the Arizona Supreme Court. (See also here and here. The opinion is here.) The issue is a bit different from the legal ethics version of the problem that we have long debated (i.e.,...
Odds and ends (November 1, 2009)
Posted on November 01, 2009Interesting article about legal ethics, "extortion," trying a case in the press, and the David Letterman affair. . . . . Following the fall of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, the lawyer who leaked emails to the press was subject to...
Saturday's MPRE test and the revised MR 1.10
Posted on October 29, 2009I've frequently been asked this question, so I thought I'd post it. Does this Saturday's MPRE test cover the new version of MR 1.10(a) that was passed this August (and was the subject of an on-again, off-again amendment in the...
The Ethics of Experting
Posted on October 28, 2009I have only in the last year or two really done much experting (I mostly spent my time counseling firms to avoid problems, when I'm not teaching, writing, speaking, or just hanging). Frankly, I've seen some people that I respect,...
Ben Kuehne in the clear?
Posted on October 28, 2009The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog has the details about good news for criminal defense attorney Ben Kuehne, who was accused of committing a crime by writing an opinion letter about another attorney's receipt of fees from a client.
Elina Tetelbaum: "Is it ethical for a law firm to remove a lawyer from a case because a jury might be prejudiced against that lawyer?"
Posted on October 28, 2009This student article is based upon the well-known hypothetical -- the Karen Horowitz Dilemma -- penned by our own Stephen Gillers and included in his textbook. The hypo generates great classroom discussions about the relative importance of winning a case...
Moral Freaks: Lawyers' Ethics in Academic Perspective
Posted on October 27, 2009That's the title of a new article by Columbia's Bill Simon. This is the abstract: Much recent academic discussion exaggerates the distance between plausible legal ethics and ordinary morality. This essay criticizes three prominent strands of discussion: one drawing on...
GAO report on cost of law school: blame USN&WR, not ABA
Posted on October 27, 2009Report here. News article here. One of the key issues is the effect of cost on minority enrollment. The GAO reports that "most" law schools don't blame the ABA's accreditation standards as having an impact on minority access.
The MPRE
Posted on October 26, 2009Mercer students tell me that they can spend 3.5 hours (less than the full length of the video) watching the MPRE prep video and pass the test. The test, to me, seems to be, as a result, somewhat... unnecessary. I...
South Carolina issues Opinion on Links to Attorney Profiles
Posted on October 26, 2009The South Carolina bar association addressed a hypothetical website that listed attorneys without their involvement, and allows "clients" and others to "rate" the attorney. The bar association held that a lawyer could claim his listing in this service, but that...
Kevin Michels: "Internal Corporate Investigations and the Truth"
Posted on October 26, 2009Kevin Michel's new paper is here. Abstract: In 2008, nearly half of all United States public companies commissioned outside counsel to conduct at least one internal investigation. The corporation, government officials, courts, shareholders and the public rely on investigative reports...
Criminal defense lawyer reveals confidences of executed client?
Posted on October 25, 2009Dave Hoffman at Concurring Opinions posted this, about an interview with David, Martin, the criminal defense counsel for the since-executed Cameron Todd Willingham. Since the execution, arson experts have argued that the original arson report relied upon theories that were...
Prosecutors Subpoena Students' Grades in Innocence Project
Posted on October 25, 2009At Northwestern University, the Innocence Project has submitted evidence, including videotapes of witnesses? testimony, exonerating Anthony McKinney, who has been in prison since his conviction in 1978. This evidence was obtained by various students in the Innocence Project over a...
Live blogging the UC-Berkeley Conference on "Social Networks: Friend or Foe"
Posted on October 23, 2009Schedule here. I'm on the last panel -- the infamous "late Friday afternoon ethics CLE slot" -- and for educational purposes will argue for the traditional norms. If you have any questions or issues you'd like me to pursue, leave...
Prosecutor Disbelieves Alleged Victim, So Offers Plea Deal
Posted on October 22, 2009The NYT reports today on the recantation of charges of rape and torture by a woman in W.Va. Six people pleaded guilty and are serving long sentences. The prosecutor explained that he offered the plea agreements because he was skeptical...
Revocation of Kerik's Bail
Posted on October 22, 2009I?m no fan of Bernard Kerik, but I?m wondering about the propriety of the revocation of his bail, and his imprisonment, on the judge?s finding that he had leaked information to the public that the judge had ordered sealed. It...
Thinking about loyalty
Posted on October 21, 2009I just returned home from the just finished and entirely fantastic Hofstra Law conference organized by co-blogger Roy Simon, "Power, Politics and Public Service: The Legal Ethics of Lawyers in Government". On the last day of the conference Robert Mundheim...
Texas Supreme Court puts out New Rules for Comment
Posted on October 20, 2009I've only had a chance to glance at them, but they are still remarkably distinct from the Model Rules in some respects. And, from what I saw on first glance at least, they appear to have eliminated Texas's infamous "you...
The Ethics of Corporate Investigations
Posted on October 20, 2009I was recently a panelist at the Association of Corporate Counsel's annual conference, and someone in the audience posed an interesting hypothetical. Imagine that in-house counsel is conducting an internal investigation and speaks with an employee whose conduct may have...
Prosecutorial Misconduct (and Gall)
Posted on October 20, 2009In the prosecution of Rod Blagojevich, federal prosecutors have complained to the judge that the former governor is tainting the jury pool with pretrial publicity, and have asked for a gag order. (NYT, 10/2009). What gall! Almost a year ago,...
DOJ and the proposed rules on providing discovery
Posted on October 20, 2009In the wake of the botched prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens, the DOJ is revising policy regarding discovery -- although some question whether the DOJ is going far enough.
Bill Henderson and Andrew Morriss: What [law school] rankings don't say about costly choices
Posted on October 19, 2009Inaccurate perceptions by law school applicants and law students, especially concerning the odds of getting a lucrative biglaw job, lead them to make dumb choices.
Qualcomm rehearing date? (Is it January 13-15, 2010?)
Posted on October 19, 2009I've been getting lots of questions about the status of the Qualcomm v. Broadcom matter, and in particular about when the long-awaited rehearing will be held. I've been told it's set for January 13-15, 2010, but cannot confirm it. Does...
Fifth Circuit pondering "irrebuttable imputation of all confidences" for laterals?
Posted on October 19, 2009News stories here and here suggest that the Fifth Circuit is deciding whether there is an irrebuttable presumption that a departing lawyer gained all of his prior firm's confidences. There's only one sane way to rule on that issue. I...
Odd and ends (October 16, 2009)
Posted on October 16, 2009Story here about a plaintiffs lawyer's rough day before a Ninth Circuit disciplinary panel. . . . . In the UK, the Law Lords have been replaced by a newly created Supreme Court. . . . . . Fulbright has...
Red State/Blue State
Posted on October 15, 2009Perhaps apropos of Brad's recent post regarding the teaching of morals in law school, Fordham Law School's Stein Center for Law and Ethics has just released the film Red State/Blue State: Lawyers, Politics & Moral Counseling (available along with a...
Hricik and Steele to Actually Meet!
Posted on October 15, 2009John and I are speaking at an insurance company seminar, on ethical issues in IP practice, later today in San Francisco. For two people who have "known" each other for years, it will be good to put a face with...
S.Ct. Justices on Trial Judges & Trial Lawyering
Posted on October 15, 2009From: High Court Justices Doubt Lawyers Should Be Paid Extra for Winning, Tony Mauro, The National Law Journal, October 15, 2009 Justice Alito on the quality and honesty of trial judges: ?Justice Samuel Alito Jr. said he was ?very troubled?...
The ethics of posting on legal ethics websites
Posted on October 14, 2009So let's say there's a discussion going on about a case in which I've been consulted but no one other than the client and its counsel knows I've been consulted and I am not free to reveal that fact (or...
Incompetence on the Supreme Court
Posted on October 14, 2009Tony Mauro, The National Law Journal, October 14, 2009 Lawyer competence was the topic of the day at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, as justices heard two cases involving claims of ineffective assistance of counsel that violated the Sixth...
Federal Jurisdiction over Patent Malpractice Claims: An Interesting New Texas Case
Posted on October 13, 2009In Minton v. Gunn, __ S.W.3d __, 2009 Tex. App. Lexis 7918 (Tex. App. -- Ft. Worth 2009, no pet. h.), the appellate court in a two-to-one decision held that there was no substantial federal question presented where the alleged...
A "Right" to Inadvertent Disclosures?
Posted on October 13, 2009Stephen Gillers and I are co-writing this post. Here is Stephen's portion: At the Akron conference last week, Andy Perlman argued that the rule on whether a lawyer who receives an electronic document may mine for metadata should be the...
Concluding (Perhaps) Remarks on the Perjury Trilemma
Posted on October 13, 2009Contrary to Steve, I think that our online discussion has established some important points of broad interest. First, Steve has not been able to justify, on policy grounds, the fact that there is a dearth of cases under MR 3.3...
"Civil Gideon" pilot program starts in California
Posted on October 13, 2009California just enacted a pilot program for a "civil Gideon" right -- i.e., taxpayer supported lawyers who represent poor litigants in civil matters that most affect their lives (evictions, child custody disputes, domestic violence matters, etc.) Although it's just a...
Implications of a Uniform Bar Exam
Posted on October 13, 2009The National Conference of Bar Examiners has created a Uniform Bar Exam, which a state can use in lieu of writing its own exams. (Story here and commentary here.) Of course, states have been moving in this direction for years...
Proskauer partner who represented Stanford Financial steps away from firm
Posted on October 13, 2009Thomas Sjoblom, the Proskauer partner who represented Stanford Financial, has reportedly left the firm. There has been speculation about whether the feds will treat Sjoblom as a witness or a target. Earlier story here, from WSJ Sjoblom has been sued....
BofA will waive privilege, produce communications from lawyers, and let us see how high-end lawyering is done
Posted on October 13, 2009Story here; WSJ law blog post here. Sometimes, when a company goes bankrupt and the trustee waives privilege, we get to see what the lawyers did and said. Now, we'll have a rare opportunity for us to see how Wachtell...
Supreme Court's Lawyering Focus Continues
Posted on October 13, 2009The Supreme Court takes up two more lawyering cases this week: Padilla v. Kentucky today and Perdue v. Kenny A. tomorrow. The Padilla case involves an ineffective assistance of counsel claim brought by a legal permanent resident whose attorney incorrectly...
The Elihu Root Quotation
Posted on October 12, 2009Stuart M. Speiser, Sarbanes-Oxley and the Myth of the Lawyer-statesman, ABA Litigation, Fall, 2005: [According to]the timeworn phrase attributed to Elihu Root--"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and...
Related to the Imputation Issue
Posted on October 12, 2009While catching up on reading, I noticed National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Wuerth (Ohio, 7/29/09), which held that a law firm cannot be liable absent proof that an agent committed malpractice, rendering the firm vicariously liable. This opinion makes...
The Blizzard of Paper that Precedes the USNews Survey
Posted on October 11, 2009For those of you not in academia, you probably will be interested, and either amused or saddened, by the following. Each year, late in the fall, USN sends out a survey to certain members of academia, among others. Deans, associate...
The Criminal Defense Lawyer's Trilemma
Posted on October 11, 2009Steve Gillers and I have some fundamental disagreements about the perjury trilemma. Steve?s position is set out in ?Monroe Freedman?s Solution to the Criminal Defense Lawyer?s Trilemma Is Wrong As a Matter of Policy and Constitutional Law,? 34 Hofstra L...
Do we have to keep having this conversation?
Posted on October 09, 2009An editorial in today's electronic version of the National Jurist argues that it's time to teach morality in law schools. Okay, we'll get right on that. Because, you know, the legal profession, the legal academy, and those of us who...
Tooting my own Horn: Ethics in Patent Prosecution Published by Oxford University Press
Posted on October 08, 2009I co-authored it with Drinker Biddle partner Mercedes Meyer, and it's available here. Here's their blurb: Patent Ethics: Prosecution serves as an essential guide to the ethical issues arising in the course of the patent prosecution process. By providing relevant...
What is a "timely" screen under the new 1.10?
Posted on October 08, 2009Lawyer Larry's representation of Client A ended five years ago. Four years ago, he joined the Firm, which has represented Client B for many years. One year ago, Client B asks the Firm to initiate litigation against Client A that...
Imputing Knowledge in the Malpractice Context
Posted on October 07, 2009I gave an opinion in this case, so I'm biased. The facts, grossly exaggerated, were these: firm's west coast office files an application to patent X; not knowing of this, and despite running a conflicts check, east coast office later...
Patent Lawyers and Surreptitious Undercover Investigations
Posted on October 07, 2009Hi, all. I've been away (3 weeks in China, a concussion, and a blown knee will do that to you!). I'm back. In the course of writing a book on ethical issues in patent litigation, I dug long and hard...
Judicial Compassion (Empathy)
Posted on October 07, 2009Fla. Appeals Court Takes Judge to Task for 'Benevolence' Susannah A. Nesmith, Daily Business Review, October 7, 2009 "Benevolence and compassion" have no place when it comes to setting foreclosure sales, a Florida state appellate court ruled in a stern...
Confidentiality in the Supreme Court
Posted on October 06, 2009High Court Debates Value of Attorney-Client Privilege Tony Mauro (10-06-2009) A Georgia company's efforts to resist disclosure of communications with its lawyer provoked a rare discussion at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday over the importance of attorney-client privilege...
Supreme Court Opens Term with First of Seven Cases on the Law of Lawyering
Posted on October 05, 2009The unusual number of lawyering cases on the Supreme Court?s docket is continuing to get noticed. As American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck observed in a recent National Law Journal Article: ?At the beginning of every term,...
Real Evidence: What Is the Scope of a Lawyer's Duty?
Posted on October 04, 2009Many courts have accepted the Washington Supreme Court's holding in State v. Olwell (1964) that a lawyer, whose client gave him a knife that the client may have used in a homicide, must give the knife to the prosecution "on...
Legal Ethics, Jurisprudence, and the Cultural Study of the Lawyer
Posted on October 02, 2009That's the title of a new article by Syracuse Professor Rakesh K. Anand. Here's the article, and this is the abstract: In America, law is a cultural practice. Americans are dedicated to living as a community under the rule of...
Vermont Chimes in on Metadata
Posted on October 02, 2009The Vermont State Bar Association has issued an opinion on metadata mining, concluding that the practice is generally permissible. To date, fourteen bar associations have examined whether lawyers should be permitted to engage in metadata mining. The opinions fall into...
Why are lawyers unhappy?
Posted on October 01, 2009About a week ago the WSJ Law Blog had an interview with Gretchen Rubin, Yale law grad, O'Connor law clerk and now writer of "The Happiness Project", a blog and future book. The interview is here. In the interview Rubin...
Choice of law regarding ethics and liability to non-clients was key to dismissal of suit against Bryan Cave
Posted on September 30, 2009A New Jersey court was the wrong place for a non-client plaintiff to sue Bryan Cave for its representation of what turned out to be a ponzi scheme, a New Jersey appellate court held. The forum was inconvenient because the...
Mary Radford: "Ethical Challenges in Representing Families in Family Limited Partnerships"
Posted on September 30, 2009This new article by Mary Radford looks at common ethics issues arising in classic "Main Street" practice, where the lawyer may end up represented multiple family members and family businesses. The artice is quite useful if you teach PR, you...
AmLaw's Global 100 published
Posted on September 30, 2009Published today. Eighteen firms, listed below, had revenue over $1 billion (ranging from $2.4 to $1 billion). (1) Linklaters (2) Freshfields (3) Clifford Chance (4) Skadden (5) Baker (6) Allen (7) Latham (8) Jones Day (9) Sidley (10) White &...
Ninth Circuit rules in Ruehle: Ruehle loses; trial court reversed; Irell vindicated; matter remanded.
Posted on September 30, 2009Decision here. No doubt, more to come from David, Brad, Steve, and others about this important case. Upon a lightning-quick skim, it seems that in footnote 7 the court finessed the issue that had us so agitated: whether Bevil and...
Polanski affair: WSJ says that Marcia Clark says that prosecutor says he lied about improper ex parte contacts?
Posted on September 30, 2009Lurking behind the Polanski affair has been an ethics issue: the notion that a prosecutor may have used improper ex parte contacts to poison the judge's attitude toward Polanski -- causing Polanski to flee the US. I will let the...
Former in-house lawyer for Toyota gets referred to state bar for revealing client confidences
Posted on September 28, 2009Unfortunately, the good articles are still behind registration walls, but a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles has referred former Toyota in-house lawyer Dimitrios Biller to the state bar for violating his duty of confidentiality to Toyota, and has issued...
ABA 20/20 Commission Listserv
Posted on September 26, 2009I just returned from the first meeting of the new 20/20 Commission, whose charge, as you may know, is to study how advances in information technology and global trade may require changes in how US lawyers are regulated (and not...
The Assisted Suicide Lottery
Posted on September 25, 2009Advising Clients About Law Enforcement Practices Tax attorneys debate informing clients about the ?audit lottery.? The Restatement of the LGL, section 94, cmt. (f) suggests that it?s wrong to tell a client that the likelihood is that he won?t be...
One article request
Posted on September 25, 2009In my section on "government lawyers" I teach the students a little about the torture lawyers. These are relatively well informed Canadian law students, which means they mostly only have some general knowledge of the issues. I want to give...
No constitutional right to court room slobbery...
Posted on September 25, 2009An attempt to argue for a constitutional right to wear jeans and a baseball cap in court failed: here
"Law" within the Bush administration: too little, too much, the wrong kind?
Posted on September 24, 2009The role of lawyers in the Global War on Terrorism remains the dominant legal ethics issue of our time. We frequently hear criticism of the Bush administration for abandoning the rule of law. Here's an interesting post from Mary Dudziak,...
Discovery sanctions affirmed for game playing; lawyer claims duty to be zealous -- "even at peril to myself."
Posted on September 24, 2009The opinion's here. It deals with all-too-typical petty game playing during discovery, and the opinion is appropriately dismissive of the behavior of plaintiff's counsel. (For example, when hit with an interrogatory requesting a statement of "economic damages" -- which is...
ABA strikes back at FTC regulation of lawyers as "creditors"
Posted on September 24, 2009The ABA has filed for partial summary judgment (brief here) in its lawsuit (complaint here) against the FTC for regulating lawyers as "creditors." The ABA argues that the FTC exceeded its Congressional mandate on this issue. This type of federal...
Steve Gillers' new book
Posted on September 23, 2009I just received in the mail, and am looking forward to reading, Steve Gillers' new one-volume treatise, Regulation of the Legal Profession. It's in the Essentials series published by Aspen.
Corporations as Persons
Posted on September 22, 2009With regard to an issue raised earlier, the NYTimes says in an editorial today that corporations shouldn't be treated as real persons for all speech purposes because corporations can't vote, run for office, or bear arms. However, that is true...
Renee Knake on the Supreme Court's docket of law of lawyering cases
Posted on September 21, 2009Renee Knake sends along this post: Thanks both to John Steele, who recently featured my article on the Supreme Court?s increased attention to the law of lawyering during the upcoming term, and to Andrew Perlman for presenting me with the...
Slate on the Hood Case
Posted on September 21, 2009Slate has posted an excellent story (here) about the recent developments in the Charles Hood case.
Inaugural Symposium of Akron Law School's Miller-Becker Institute
Posted on September 21, 2009Akron Law School's Miller-Becker Institute for Professional Responsibility is holding a symposium on October 8th and 9th. The themes include ?Lawyers Beyond Borders? and ?Practicing Law in the Electronic Age.? More details are here.
Berkeley Conference on Social Networks -- Legal and Ethical Issues
Posted on September 21, 2009Panels here; description of conference here. I'll be on this panel: Can Lawyers ?Tweet? About Their Work? Confidentiality & Legal Professionalism in the Age of Social Media Lawyers? uses of social media tools and networks raise distinct challenges to the...
Is a congressional witness entitled to attorney-client privilege?
Posted on September 21, 2009As the Times story today signals, a House committee is prepared to require Bank of America to reveal information it has withheld from the SEC and AG Cuomo on grounds of privilege. The privilege doesn't apply in Congress, says the...
Salon on the Hood Case
Posted on September 21, 2009Salon.com has posted an excellent story (here) about the recent developments in the Charles Hood case. Correction: As originally posted, I had mistakenly said that the story was on slate.com.
McAfee's former GC sues corporation's lawyers. Do we need a bill of rights for corporate officers/agents?
Posted on September 18, 2009Story here. In the wake of financial scandals, we are seeing a lot of this -- corporate officers claiming that the corporation's counsel threw the officers under the bus. Sometimes the officers claim that they were a co-client (as in...
Do we need ethics rules?
Posted on September 18, 2009I know it's been asked before, but if we assume for a moment that there are no professional conduct rules, wouldn't the courts, via caselaw, and perhaps the legislatures, fill the void; and might we not expect the product that...
"Hood"winking in Texas
Posted on September 17, 2009Readers may recall Charles Hood, who faces execution even though the prosecutor and judge in his case have admitted to having had a secret affair prior to his trial. (Links to previous coverage and commentary are here.) Unfortunately, but not...
The Supreme Court and the law of lawyering
Posted on September 15, 2009PR is hot, hot, hot. Renee Knake's new article alerts us to six -- count'em six -- pending cases at the Supreme Court dealing with the law of lawyering. In Prioritizing Professional Responsibility and the Legal Profession: An Emerging Trend...
Sample Exam Question
Posted on September 14, 2009I post sample exam questions from time to time. I used this one last semester. ******* You and another associate work for Margret Brant at her three-person law firm. You arrive at work one day and find that Brant has...
How Hard Should We Work to Avoid "The Death of Big Law?"
Posted on September 14, 2009Larry Ribstein recently posted his new paper, "The Death of Big Law," and I recommend reading it, though I resist some of his conclusions. He argues that there are several regulatory reforms that are needed in order to facilitate the...
The Legal Ethics of Metadata Mining
Posted on September 14, 2009I've been blogging about the issue for years (I'll save you a parade of links), but I finally had the chance to pull my thoughts together in an article for an upcoming symposium at Akron Law School. I'd welcome feedback...
Judge Rakoff's Latest: Shades of Stanley Sporkin
Posted on September 14, 2009The Times website has a link to Rakoff's refusal to approve the Bank of America/SEC consent degree. (I'd hyperlink it if I knew how.) We've been discussing the litigation in class because of the possibility of waiver of privilege by...
Risks for Young Lawyers In Cyberspace
Posted on September 13, 2009Helpful for those of us who teach legal ethics (and for lawyers generally) is a front page NYT story today about the dangers of revealing confidential information in virtual reality, even if you think you're disguising the facts; or of...
Ted Olson Coming and Going
Posted on September 13, 2009No one is complaining and far be it from me to do so, but purely as an (um) academic matter, is there anything improper in the fact that as solicitor general Ted Olson successfully defended McCain-Feingold against constitutional challenge, and...
Bankruptcy trustee files suit against K&L Gates over LeNature's failure
Posted on September 11, 2009These days, is there anyone scarier to law firms than the bankruptcy trustees? Story here.
Alexandra Lahav, "Portraits of Resistance: Lawyer Responses to Unjust Proceedings"
Posted on September 11, 2009Article here; author's page. I once had a civil rights lawyer speak to my students about what it was like to represent indigent African-Americans in rural southern courts where the judges weren't lawyers and were prejudiced. The lawyer told us...
Why did Bank of America fire its General Counsel?
Posted on September 11, 2009The NYT wants to know, and it wonders if the firing was related to unreported losses. Between the lines, the NYT suggests that, perhaps, the general counsel was fired because he was trying to make the company do the right...
Rob Vischer: "Professionalizing Moral Engagement"
Posted on September 11, 2009Article here. Abstract: This essay is an invited response to Michael Hatfield, who argues that the legal profession might avoid creating lawyers willing to ?sign off on torture if their professional education did not begin with dis-integrating the skills for...
New movie, The Informant, has lotsa legal ethics angles
Posted on September 11, 2009One of my favorite non-fiction books, The Informant, is now a movie starring Matt Damon. (Blawgosphere comments here) The movie has some great legal ethics issues and if you teach PR and are interested, shoot me an email and I...
DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility to open investigation in controversial settlement of voter intimidation case
Posted on September 10, 2009Story here. I can't tell if the investigation is pro forma because a Congressman asked for it, or if there is a more serious investigation underway.
Alice Woolley, "Imperfect Duty: Lawyers' Obligation to Foster Access to Justice"
Posted on September 10, 2009Our very own Alice Woolley has this paper out. Abstract:Access to justice is an integral component of the legal system. However, the question of upon whose shoulders the obligation of ensuring this access should fall has been widely debated. In...
What is the justification for an attorney-client privilege for large corporations?
Posted on September 09, 2009In class today, we discussed Upjohn and other cases variously defining the scope of the attorney-client privilege for corporations and other entities. One question that arose is whether there is any justification for any privilege? I distinguish the Ma and...
Ethics course as professional discipline
Posted on September 08, 2009Our provincial regulator has recently required a lawyer to take an ethics course at our law school as a condition of readmission into practice. Is this a usual practice in your jurisdiction? How does your law school deal with this?...
The Broadcom/Irell Privilege Question
Posted on September 07, 2009Prompted by Brad's post I have looked more closely at the district court order in the Broadcom matter. It presents several interesting issues and I have drafted an amicus brief addressing them. The brief takes issue with the proposition that...
Federal judges moving to force more disclosure by prosecutors?
Posted on September 04, 2009Unfortunately, this article by The American Lawyer's reporter Mike Scarcella is behind a registration wall, but he reports that a number of federal judges are urging an amendment to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which would force prosecutors to...
Perlman vs. Richmond on 5.2's silliness
Posted on September 03, 2009In the new issue of The Professional Lawyer, be sure to check out the debate about Rule 5.2 between Andy Perlman and Doug Richmond -- a debate that originated here on LEF. (And if you're interested in legal ethics and...
Ninth Circuit creating ombudsman program for complaints about judges
Posted on September 03, 2009Unfortunately the story is behind a registration wall, but the Ninth Circuit is rolling out an ombudsman program by which practitioners could discreetly raise issues about a judge's behavior or temperament.
Dina Mishra on conflicts of interest for municipal lawyers in §1983 cases
Posted on September 03, 2009How can the muni lawyer represent the municipality and the official who allegedly violated the plaintiff's rights? Article here. Abstract: In many cases, municipal attorneys defend both a municipality and a municipal official against § 1983 claims. Some defenses available...
Bill Henderson on "drawing the right lessons from the bleak entry-level legal job market"
Posted on September 03, 2009Over at Legal Profession Blog, Bill Henderson focuses on how the academy should respond to the changing market conditions. Worth reading.
9th Cir. Looking for Guidance on Attorney-Client Privilege
Posted on September 03, 2009LEF readers may remember Andy's post with the excellent title, "Irate at Irell." The post linked to a district court decision from the C.D. Cal. excoriating Irell & Manella for breaching its duty of loyalty to a corporate officer during...
Massachusetts Drops Controversial Proposal Regarding Judicial Law Clerks
Posted on September 02, 2009The proposal, which was floated in June, would have enabled the state courts to get free law clerk assistance from highly qualified recent law school graduates. The catch? The clerks would have been getting compensated by law firms that had...
Ethics and law school promotional claims
Posted on September 02, 2009The WSJ law blog and the NYT Deal Book discuss the economics of attending law school, and suggest that perhaps some schools aren't being accurate in their promotional claims -- a topic this blog was discussing over four years ago....
Jane Yakowitz looks at what happens to JDs who fail the bar.
Posted on September 02, 2009Interesting question on which there hasn't been much written. Abstract: What happens to law school graduates that fail the bar exam? This invisible population makes up a significant portion of the graduating law school classes, but we don't know anything...
Florida State Bar may want access to applicants' Facebook pages
Posted on September 01, 2009This story is flying around the blawgosphere. The ethics rules require a strong version of candor when applying for the bar, and bars can demand that you provide all sorts of information, but this gives me the creeps. Among other...
Banning internet use in PR class, because it doesn't prepare students for the real world?
Posted on September 01, 2009"You can't use internet in class, because you can't surf the web during important real world meetings. I'm preparing you for the real world." *Sigh*.
Ethics Charge in D.A. Race
Posted on September 01, 2009As everyone in NYC knows, and many outside it, there is a fierce battle for the Democratic nomination for Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau is stepping down at age 90 after 34 years. The candidates are Richard Aborn, a former Manhattan...
Fraud in trademark prosecution not satisfied by finding of "should have known better"
Posted on August 31, 2009Patently O has the story. Opinion here. Appellant's counsel was Chuck Hieken, a true gentleman and consummate IP lawyer.
Odds and ends (August 31, 2009)
Posted on August 31, 2009On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court will hear argument in Costco Wholesale v. Superior Court, perhaps the most important case on attorney client privilege in California in decades. Costco's lawyers had written a lengthy and dense opinion letter to Costco,...
Justified regulation of civility?
Posted on August 31, 2009While I have not been a great fan of civility movements in professional discipline, even I have to acknowledge the legitimacy of professional discipline for the Toronto lawyer, Julia Ranieri who, after a verbal disagreement with a client who wished...
The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Law Schools
Posted on August 28, 2009In his column today surveying Edward Kennedy's Senate career in 900 words, David Brooks contrasts the visionary and (to Brooks) radical agenda Kennedy articulated at the 1980 Democratic convention with his pragmatism (and therefore successes) in the ensuing decades...
Living in FL, Practice in MD and DC, $100M p/a for 30 minutes per day
Posted on August 28, 2009Yes, you read that correctly. The ABA Journal is featuring "legal rebels" both on its web site and in the September issue. One such is Richard Granat, who now lives in Florida (age 69). He is profiled as a man...
Cookies on LEF
Posted on August 28, 2009I just logged onto LEF (for some extremely interesting discussion), and then found that my computer had accumulated four cookies that I don't want. Anyone concerned about potential adware and spyware might want to check under tools, options, and security/privacy...
California adopts insurance disclosure rule, effective January 2010
Posted on August 27, 2009Here's the order and the new rule 3-410, which was hotly debated. Congrats to many, including Jim Towery, who worked on this issue for many years. Download 3410
Anita Bernstein -- Pitfalls Ahead: A Manifesto for the Training of Lawyers
Posted on August 27, 2009SSRN page here. Abstract: Entrants joining the legal profession are entitled to fair warning about what they are getting into. Accounts of lawyers' heroism, triumph, and reformist energy continue to inspire young people to pursue this profession, and they should...
Is the SEC targeting a biglaw partner in a securities fraud case?
Posted on August 27, 2009The WSJ law blog is carrying the story. You may recall that the lawyer, a partner at Proskauer, attended an SEC interview with an officer of his client and gave what I consider to be an ambiguous answer when asked...
Microsoft lawyer's appellate brief addresses $40 million enhancement (partially) for litigation conduct
Posted on August 27, 2009Starts at p. 73. Overall the brief firmly asserts error below. I find its tone to be well within ethical limits, but it doesn't pull punches -- especially pages 1-5.
The ABA's 20/20 Commission
Posted on August 26, 2009The charge to the ABA's new 20/20 Commission is expansive. This is from the press release: ?Technological advances and globalization have changed our profession in ways not yet reflected in our ethics codes and regulatory structure. Technologies such as e-mail,...
Is there a "canon" of legal ethics video clips?
Posted on August 26, 2009This afternoon in my PR class, I am going to show the 60 Minutes story on Alton Logan, which is the best vehicle I have found for helping students appreciate the stakes of the confidentiality rule. I do not show...
Can the mayor waive privilege?
Posted on August 26, 2009Interesting story out of San Francisco, where the mayor leaked a privileged legal memorandum from the City Attorney's office. Who has the right to waive privilege? And if that includes the mayor, is waiver proper only in certain ways and...
The lawyer's role in the first year curriculum
Posted on August 25, 2009I take it as a very good sign for the direction of legal education that UC-Irvine's new law school is requiring its entering students to take an interdisciplinary course exploring the lawyer's role. Here's the description: Law 507A - Legal...
North Carolina Central makes more good news
Posted on August 25, 2009I'm always looking at how the legal profession excludes new entrants, and what purpose is served by the exclusion. One of the fascinating law schools to watch is North Carolina Central, whose graduates pass the bar at such rates that...
Welcome to Our Newest Co-Blogger, Professor Stephen Gillers
Posted on August 24, 2009I am delighted to welcome Professor Stephen Gillers as our newest co-blogger. (His first post appears below.) As many readers of this blog know, Stephen is the author of numerous important books and articles on legal ethics, is a frequently...
The 10 Worst Cases in Lawyer Regulation: Nominations Please
Posted on August 24, 2009For a talk at an upcoming ethics conference at the University of Akron School of Law, I decided to write about the Ohio Supreme Court's Rancman opinion, which not only rejected litigation funding as champerty and maintenance, but used rather...
Odds and ends (August 23, 2009)
Posted on August 23, 2009Here's an article about James Moliterno, a PR prof who travels the globe, consulting on legal ethics. . . . . More legal ethics fall-out from the saga of Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit. . . . ....
NY Criminal Defense Lawyers Convicted of Attempted Witness Tampering
Posted on August 21, 2009After six days of jury deliberations, a federal jury in Brooklyn has convicted a prominent New York criminal defense attorney (Robert Simels) and his associate on multiple federal felony counts, including attempted witness tampering. The testimony in the case brought...
Law professors on Professor Yoo and tenure
Posted on August 21, 2009In the wake of the statement by the Dean of UC-Berkeley Law School, Christopher Edley, about whether the school will look into Professor Yoo's tenure, the New York Times collects views here (including from our own Brad Wendel), the UC-Berkeley...
Ninth Circuit holds that in-house lawyer had retaliatory discharge claim under Sarbanes-Oxley
Posted on August 21, 2009Opinion here. Story here.
California appellate court affirms common interest doctrine; protects work product shared with co-defendants; DQs firm that hired lateral
Posted on August 20, 2009Meza v. H. Muehlstein & Co.
England's proposals for alternative business structures (?ABS?) (= MDP)
Posted on August 20, 2009I just received an email from James Hutchinson of the Legal Services Board in London, stating as follows: Please find attached a ?discussion paper? on ?Alternative Business Structures? which went out for consultation here in England. It was issued by...
Which cause lawyers control the case? (Gay rights lawyers not allowed to intervene in Prop 8 challenge)
Posted on August 20, 2009In the constitutional challenge to California's Prop 8 (barring same sex marriage), the judge denied a request by gay rights lawyers to intervene in the case and granted an intervention request by the City of San Francisco. Story here. I...
Teach Legal Ethics in Kosovo
Posted on August 19, 2009Seriously. This program sponsored by the ABA's Rule of Law Initiative is seeking legal ethics teachers to spend 6-12 months working on legal education reform in Kosovo: American Bar Association, Rule of Law Initiative-Kosovo, Legal Education Reform Specialist (6-12 months,...
Firm didn't represent individual officers; malpractice claim tossed
Posted on August 19, 2009We've so often seen claims by organizational agents (e.g., officer, directors, employees) that the organization's law firm represent the agent personally. Sometimes the courts have great sympathy for those claims; sometimes not. In this case, no sympathy.
Improper arguments in the news
Posted on August 19, 2009Two eye-catching news stories deal with improper arguments by trial counsel: (1) the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the conviction of Gregory Reyes for back-dating options; and (2) a trial court judge's decision to tack on $40 million in damages that...
Seinfeld, Vermont, and Rule 1.6
Posted on August 18, 2009In the memorable last episode of Seinfeld, the lead characters get arrested in Massachusetts and sent to jail for failing to help someone who was getting carjacked. The storyline seemed a little far fetched, but then again, it was Seinfeld....
What I did on my summer holidays
Posted on August 17, 2009To be fair this is not what I did on my summer holidays, but "what I did for work this summer" isn't quite as catchy. In any event, what I did was read Tim Dare's wonderful new book, Counsel of...
Textron decision on work product privilege
Posted on August 17, 2009On August 13 the first circuit released an en banc decision on whether material not prepared for litigation but which "relates to a subject that might or might not occasion litigation" fall within the work product privilege (here). The materials...
Court Strikes Down Several Louisiana Advertising Rules
Posted on August 17, 2009A federal district court has held that several provisions of Louisiana's advertising rules, which were to take effect in October, are unconstitutional. The opinion is here. The provisions that were struck down were Rules 7.5(b)(2)(C) (containing a requirement to disclose...
ILEC4: Panel on Duty of Loyalty and Conflicts of Interest
Posted on August 12, 2009[Here's a proposed session for the Fourth International Legal Ethics Conference. If others would like to propose sessions and use the blog to locate potential collaborators, please send a blurb like this to wbw@cornell.edu] The idea that a lawyer owes...
Fourth International Legal Ethics Conference
Posted on August 12, 2009(That's ILEC4, for those of you who are fond of acronyms.) The Stanford Center on the Legal Profession has put out a call for papers for the Fourth International Legal Ethics Conference, to be held July 15-17, 2010, in Palo...
Call for Papers
Posted on August 10, 2009Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities: An interdisciplinary approach to law teaching Golden Gate University School of Law and the Society of American Law Teachers?SALT?are presenting a two-day teaching conference in San Francisco on March 19/20, 2010...
Canadian Edition of Understanding Lawyers' Ethics
Posted on August 06, 2009I?m very pleased that our LEF colleague Alice Woolley, will be writing a Canadian edition of Understanding Lawyers? Ethics. Alice and I met through the LEF, and Alice, Abbe Smith, and I will get together for the first time in...
Important Decision on Contempt
Posted on August 05, 2009From BNA An attorney's sarcastic physical reaction to a disappointing bench ruling did not rise to the level of criminal contempt, the Georgia Court of Appeals said July 14 in vacating the lawyer's conviction (In re Hughes, Ga. Ct. App.,...
ABA Approves Housekeeping Amendments to Rule 1.10
Posted on August 03, 2009George Kuhlman, the ethics counsel and associate director of the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility, reports that the ABA approved important housekeeping amendments to Model Rule 1.10 this afternoon as part of the annual conference consent calendar...
New ABA Commission to Review the Model Rules
Posted on August 02, 2009The ABA is about to undertake its first comprehensive review of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct since the Ethics 2000 Commission. The new effort, which is called the Ethics 20/20 Commission, will focus on issues related to globalization, including...
Offensive (But Constitutional) Lawyer Advertising?
Posted on July 31, 2009Here is Law.com's description of a lawyer discipline case currently pending in New Jersey: New Jersey's Committee on Attorney Advertising held a hearing Monday to decide whether legal ethics rules were violated by the placing of a lawyer's advertising leaflet...
Criminal trial of criminal defense lawyer Robert Simels begins
Posted on July 28, 2009Story here. And, btw, this makes me wonder when the Second Circuit will rule in the Lynne Stewart case. Any insights, out there? It's been 1.5 years, iirc, since the oral argument.
Comedian Shows Up in John Yoo's Class
Posted on July 27, 2009Here is the resulting video. (Hat tip to the ABA Journal.) On a serious note, what do people make of this video? Did the comedian break any laws in making it? (I assume he trespassed.) Putting aside the legality of...
Should PR profs take the MPRE?
Posted on July 27, 2009Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin's modest proposal is that lawyers who administer the bar exam actually take the bar exam, and that they be suspended from practice if they do not pass. How about this proposal: people who...
Plaintiffs' Summary Judgment Motion in Challenge to Louisiana's Proposed Advertising Rules
Posted on July 22, 2009Public Citizen, which is leading a challenge to various provisions of Louisiana's proposed new Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyer advertising (due to take effect October 1, 2009), has filed a second motion for summary judgment (here) in the Eastern...
Planting spies at a law firm?
Posted on July 22, 2009According to news accounts, German private investigators hatched a plan to collect information by planting an intern at a German law firm -- but the plan was scuttled before anyone was planted. The story made me recall how during the...
Basis for decision in Dan Rather's suit that documents were not privileged?
Posted on July 22, 2009The NYT story is here. After Dan Rather reported on George W. Bush's military service, and the report was shown to be based on forged documents, CBS convened an investigatory panel which in turn hired a law firm -- K&L...
Paul Lippe on big firm decisions not to hire 2010 summer associates
Posted on July 22, 2009Provocative as ever, Lippe says it's Armageddon. The decision by several large firms to cancel Fall OCI and not have summer associates will ripple through firms and law schools over the next 18 months.
"Transnational Legal Practice," by Terry, et al.
Posted on July 22, 2009SSRN page here. Abstract: This article reviews developments in transnational legal practice during 2008, including international developments, U.S. developments, and regional developments in Australia and Europe. The article begins by reviewing international legal services statistics and information about legal education...
Rule of Necessity; Who Controls Cause Litigation?; Holland-Dozier-Holland Sue Law Firm
Posted on July 21, 2009The rarely invoked "rule of necessity" may permit NY judges to rule on an issue affecting their own pay. . . . . This story, unfortunately behind a registration wall, details the ongoing power struggle over the anti-Prop 8 litigation...
Corporate "Miranda warnings," "Upjohn warnings," at issue in Broadcom, Ruehle, and Irell matter.
Posted on July 21, 2009Article here. It's always a little dangerous to sort out the facts through media accounts, but as far as I can tell, in the Broadcom investigation the Irell lawyers did give the CFO "Upjohn warnings" that what he said to...
Lying prosecutor; criminal defense lawyer as defendant; lots of ethics issues
Posted on July 20, 2009What steps can criminal defense lawyers take to collect fees from clients with no visible means of lawful employment? And can a prosecutor lie about secretly recording a meeting? Story here.
Evade an in limine by asking a verboten topic as if were a hypothetical?
Posted on July 15, 2009It may get you two days in jail for criminal contempt. Order here. Article here.
Good judges are like good umpires. Seriously.
Posted on July 14, 2009?Judges are like umpires.? John Roberts made that claim, but the analogy isn?t universally popular. I?ve always liked it myself. For several seasons I referred basketball at a high level and I?ve sat as the arbitrator in a few dozen...
Another Confidentiality Study
Posted on July 12, 2009Here's yet another study of what seems to me to be self-evident -- that people are less likely to reveal embarrassing or harmful information if not assured of confidentiality. In a study published in The Journal of Family Psychology, researchers...
Jenia Turner, on how sharply a lawyer can criticize the (international) court
Posted on July 09, 2009At Concurring Opinions, Jenia Turner has this interesting post about a French lawyer who was warned after a sharp reference to the possibly corrupt nature of the court. Of course, this arises in the US as well. Perhaps the most...
Wisconsin adopts slightly modified ABA Model Rules 3.8(g)-(h) effective July 1, 2009
Posted on July 08, 2009On July 1, 2009, Wisconsin became the first jurisdiction to adopt a version of ABA Model Rules 3.8(g)-(h), which impose new duties on prosecutors who receive evidence creating a reasonable likelihood -- or clearly establishing -- that a defendant was...
Public-Record Exception to Confidentiality
Posted on July 08, 2009I have been wondering whether the public-record exception will (and maybe should) be interpreted much more broadly than in the past, in view of the ready availability of information on the internet. Here is a BNA report of a recent...
Confidentiality and client suicide
Posted on July 07, 2009Our recent discussion on the merits of the Mass. exception permitting disclosure to prevent wrongful incarceration got me thinking about the issue of disclosure to prevent client suicide. Based on what I could discover, in Massachusetts, like in Alberta, a...
Sonia Sotomayor "and Associates"
Posted on July 07, 2009Story here and here. Eric Turkewitz, a New York lawyer/blawger, broke the story. [Then professor Alberto Bernabe, of the John Marshall School of Law, blogged about it.] A solo cannot describe his or her practice with the phrase "and Associates"...
You Know You're a Legal Ethics Wonk When....
Posted on July 06, 2009You think it's fun to create a document like this. Use the comments for other ways to finish my sentence.
Secret recordings and California's "no contact" rule
Posted on July 06, 2009The WSJ Law Blog has this fascinating story about a criminal conviction of a government official that was secured mostly through the prosecutor's use of an audio recording of the defendant that was made in violation of California's "no contact"...
Non-Written Consents to Conflicts?
Posted on July 06, 2009I've been reviewing the new Illinois rules of professional conduct, and I noticed that they do not require a client's consent to a conflict to be in writing. See, e.g., Rule 1.7(b)(4). (The previous version of Illinois Rule 1.7 also...
Miriam Baer on the OPR's track record for disciplining federal prosecutors
Posted on July 06, 2009Over at Prawfsblawg, Miriam Baer explores whether the statistics on OPR enforcement within DOJ show that enforcement is a "reverse lottery."
Illinois Adopts Long Awaited Rule Revisions
Posted on July 03, 2009On July 1, the Illinois Supreme Court issued an order that repeals the existing rules of professional conduct and replaces them with a new set of provisions, effective January 1, 2010. Links to the new rules are here, and a...
Bill Henderson on Paul Lippe's article about the future of legal practice
Posted on July 02, 2009Bill has cross-posted his thoughts. The first paragraph from Lippe's article articulates a point that i discuss with students every semester: If I need some insight into the future of medicine, I might head over to Stanford Medical School. If...
Judge Kozinski cleared of misconduct (but "admonished")
Posted on July 02, 2009Story here. Opinion here, issued by the Third Circuit.
Bad debt=bad character
Posted on July 01, 2009For this applicant to the bar anyway: here. The circumstances seem unfortunate, and the purpose served by excluding this applicant unclear. Does he pose a threat to the public interest, or merely seem the wrong sort of person for lawyers...
To Send a Message
Posted on June 30, 2009Not lawyers' ethics, but morality. I'm interested in whether others share my (and Kant's) concern with sentencing Madoff to the max in order to "send a message," as Judge Chin said. Without doing any research on it, my recollection is...
Bill Henderson on the decline and fall of the bi-modal associate salary
Posted on June 29, 2009Must reading if you're interested in the US legal profession.
Here's one way to boost your law school's post-graduation employment rate
Posted on June 26, 2009Words fail. In one e-mail exchange, University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman forced the law school to admit an unqualified applicant backed by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich while seeking a promise from the governor's go-between that five law school graduates would...
Once enacted by a jurisdiction, who owns the copyright on a set of model rules? Pre-enactment, who does?
Posted on June 25, 2009It's a long simmering question. Pre-enactment, does the body that urges widespread adoption of a set of model rules grant a license to others? Post-enactment, does the authorship in the model rules merge with the law itself such that no...
Hmm. Justice Kennedy cites the Model Code for a duty of zeal?
Posted on June 25, 2009In the new case, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, Justice Kennedy's dissent cites Canon 7-1 of the Model Code as support for his belief that criminal defense counsel has a duty of zeal. I'm a big fan of zeal (when it's properly...
Our very own Brad Wendel, on "The Torture Memos and the Demands of Legality"
Posted on June 24, 2009Paper here. Abstract: This review essay considers five recent books concerning the role of governmetn lawyers in the Bush Administration's war on terror: Harold Bruff, Bad Advice (2009); Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency (2007); Jane Mayer, The Dark Side (2008);...
Judges and "Invidious" Discrimination
Posted on June 24, 2009In response to John's post last week on Sotomayor and the Belizean Grove, I posted a comment suggesting that maybe she was right to claim that resignation was not required. The 2007 version of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct...
Oathiness
Posted on June 23, 2009The Law Society of Upper Canada, which regulates Ontario lawyers, has just approved a new oath to be sworn by newly admitted lawyers. The new oath extends to some 8 clauses, including a requirement that the lawyer shall "in all...
Edward Sherman on attorneys fees in aggregate litigation
Posted on June 23, 2009Paper here. From the abstract of the new article from Edward Sherman of Tulane: The American legal system has much stronger procedural devices for aggregating like cases -- such as consolidation and class actions -- than do other countries. Other...
Clarifying Amendment for Rule 1.10
Posted on June 23, 2009The ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct (registration required) is reporting that the ABA's House of Delegates will consider a proposal in August that will clarify that the recent screening amendment was intended to apply only to lateral attorneys...
Survey of PR Courses
Posted on June 23, 2009Here is a document that summarizes the results of the recent survey of PR professors, which was circulated on this blog and through two legal ethics listservs. Many thanks to the more than 100 people who responded and to Professors...
Is moral deference a problem?
Posted on June 22, 2009The Northwestern Law Review Colloquy has published an essay by Michael Hatfield titled "Professionalizing Moral Deference." Hatfield uses the torture memos as evidence of a broader problem: our tendency to professionalize lawyers to view moral deference as a moral good...
Sacrificing the Client to Save the Innocent Man
Posted on June 22, 2009A few of us are debating the merits of the Alaska and Massachusetts versions of Rule 1.6 over at another blog called Public Square. Have a look.
Teaching legal ethics: actions speak louder than words, and the ouster of DePaul's dean, Glen Weissenberger
Posted on June 22, 2009I don't know the facts behind the ouster of the dean of DePaul's law school, Glen Weissenberger, but the public commentary suggests that he may have been terminated because he provided accurate information to the ABA's committee on accreditation. For...
No surprise: Sotomayor quits Belizean Grove
Posted on June 19, 2009As noted previously, this was inevitable: Sonia Sotomayor has quit the Belizean Grove. She'll apparently continue to claim that quitting wasn't required by the judicial canons -- but it was.
A Rush From Judgment? The OLC Memoranda and Modern Legal Conservatism
Posted on June 19, 2009Orwell once referred to defenses of Soviet tactics as presenting a theory of "catastrophic gradualism." In response to criticism of Stalinist brutality, a defender would say "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs." In response to the criticism...
Update on Judge Keller's Case
Posted on June 17, 2009Several of us joined in a Declaration in support of the proceeding to remove Judge Keller from the bench. One response was an effort by the Judge's lawyer to bring legal action against Bob Cummins, his five law students, and...
West Virginia on Metadata
Posted on June 17, 2009Last week, the West Virginia Bar added its two cents to the increasingly populated world of legal ethics metadata opinions. The opinion addresses the obligations of both the sender and the recipient of electronic documents. With regard to the sending...
Sonia Sotomayor's membership in the Belizean Grove
Posted on June 16, 2009Alice commented on this before, and now the WSJ Law Blog and NYT are hot on the trail. Somewhat to my surprise, it appears that Judge Sotomayor may not resign from the Belizean Grove -- at least not yet (see...
Kim Economides, former head of the Legal Ethics journal, to head New Zealand center on legal system
Posted on June 16, 2009Formerly a professor in legal ethics at the University of Exeter and formerly the editor of Legal Ethics, Economides has moved to the University of Otago to head a center that studies the legal system. It appears that the center...
Defendant sends bloody letter to court-appointed defense counsel.
Posted on June 16, 2009At some point, a criminal defendant's abuse of the legal system may deprive him of the right to counsel. But, according to the high court in Massachusetts, sending a bloody letter to your court appointed defense counsel and threatening to...
Massachusetts ethics committee OKs screens for deferred biglaw associates working as judicial clerks
Posted on June 16, 2009News blurb here. Unilateral screens (i.e., screens that work despite protestations by affected parties and former clients) continue to creep here and there into the profession. To my knowledge, this is unprecedented. Deferred biglaw associates, who are still on the...
Civility traffic school: A Loony Idea From A Pointy-Headed Academic
Posted on June 15, 2009Like the weather, everyone talks about civility but no one does anything about it. Every year since 1984, when I began following the legal press, I have read a few hand-wringing pieces about the decline of civility in the profession....
Former Jenkins & Gilchrist partners indicted for tax evasion counseling
Posted on June 15, 2009Story at White Collar Crime Prof Blog.
Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Ali G, Bruno) as undisclosed principal
Posted on June 15, 2009Via Althouse, here's a Telegraph article about the dummy corporations that were created to help hide the truth behind Cohen's latest mockumentary film. Altman asks "wouldn't you love to do that legal work?" Of course, I immediately thought of comment...
Fred Zacharias on "The Myth of [the Legal Profession's] Self-Regulation"
Posted on June 15, 2009His new article is here, in the Minnesota Law Review. Abstract: The American legal profession is highly regulated. Lawyers are governed by state-enforced professional codes, supervised by courts, and constrained by civil liability rules, civil and criminal statutes, and administrative...
John Yoo's motion to dismiss is mostly denied.
Posted on June 13, 2009Via Volokh and Con Law Profs blog, here's the opinion mostly denying John Yoo's motion to dismiss claims by Jose Padilla. I haven't had a chance to study the opinion in depth, but I'm particularly interested in the court's analysis...
John Yoo's motion to dismiss Jose Padilla's claims is mostly denied.
Posted on June 13, 2009Via Volokh and Con Law Profs blog, here's the opinion mostly denying John Yoo's motion to dismiss claims by Jose Padilla. I haven't had a chance to study the opinion in depth, but I'm particularly interested in the court's analysis...
One federal agency sues another.
Posted on June 12, 2009Here's an oddity: one federal agency sues another. (via Volokh) Presumably the government lawyers weren't in some kind of structural conflict but rather were able to limit their representation to their own agency. This kind of lawyering vis-a-vis other agencies...
Law Firm Evolution: Brave New World or Business as Usual (March 2010 Conference at Georgetown Center for the Study of the Legal Profession)
Posted on June 12, 2009Georgetown's Center for the Study of the Legal Profession has issued a call for papers for what should be another terrific conference. Details available in the download. Download Call for Papers
Sotomayor and ABA obligations?
Posted on June 11, 2009The Washington Times has an editorial today (here) which is also noted by Andrew Sullivan (here) suggesting that Sotomayor's membership in the "Belizean Grove" a women only networking organization should preclude her nomination. They also suggest that it violates ABA...
Preventing a Wrongful Execution or Incarceration
Posted on June 11, 2009What do Massachusetts and Alaska have in common (beyond the need for antifreeze)? It turns out that they share an unusual exception to the duty of confidentiality. Massachusetts has an oft-discussed exception to Rule 1.6, which permits lawyers to disclose...
Charging by the hour for sleeping with the client?
Posted on June 11, 2009Not surprisingly, the lawyer (barrister) vehemently denies that he charged his client for time spent being intimate. Under the ABA scheme, intimate relationships between lawyer and client are forbidden unless they preceded the attorney client relationship...
Roberts's 40 Questions
Posted on June 09, 2009I liked the Caperton result, and am hopeful that Steve Lubet, Andy Perlman, Alex Long, and others are correct that it will not spawn counter-productive collateral litigation. I wanted to comment on Roberts's 40 questions, which have provoked much commentary...
William Henderson and Leonard Bierman on the statistical trends for biglaw
Posted on June 09, 2009Indispensable for people interested in biglaw.
Professor Alex Long on the Caperton Decision
Posted on June 08, 2009Following up on his previous posts about the Caperton case (here and here), University of Tennessee Professor Alex Long passes along this assessment of the opinion: As you may have heard, the Supreme Court?s decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey...
The Supreme Court's Opinion on Judicial Recusal Standards
Posted on June 08, 2009The Supreme Court issued its opinion in the Caperton case this morning in a 5-4 decision. The Court held (correctly, in my view) that a West Virginia Supreme Court judge's refusal to recuse himself constituted a due process violation. The...
"[California] State Bar Dumps Top Prosecutor" (This is big in California discipline circles.)
Posted on June 05, 2009Story here. Scott Drexel, the state bar's top prosecutor, will not be re-appointed. Rumors are swirling and it's hard to get a handle on what drove the decision. Everyone agrees that Drexel implemented more aggressive policies, that his office prosecuted...
AG Holder reverses Mukasey's position on ineffective assistance claims in immigration matters
Posted on June 04, 2009Nod to the Blog of the Legal Times: AG Eric Holder has reversed the decision of the prior AG, Michael Mukasey, in the Compean matter. Mukasey had decided that immigration court affords no constitutional guarantee against ineffective assistance of counsel...
Jasmine v. Marvell (the "forgot to hang up and left incriminating voicemail with the opposing lawyer" case) dismissed
Posted on June 04, 2009Jasmine v. Marvell, one of the most discussed ethics cases in years, has been dismissed. It's the case where the general counsel for the defendant telephoned the general counsel at the plaintiff, left a voicemail message, inadvertently didn't hang up,...
Lying on application leads to loss of insurance coverage
Posted on June 04, 2009Imagine that you were honest on your insurance application but your partner was not -- and that the policy was voided for dishonesty. Details at The Ethical Quandary,
Confidentiality or accountability?
Posted on June 03, 2009David Weiden of Indiana University is conducting a research study of current and former law clerks of the Supreme Court of Canada. Unlike (as I understand it) USSC clerks, SCC clerks are not the subject of much public discussion, and...
$3 billion post-insolvency claim against biglaw
Posted on June 02, 2009Here's news of a $3 billion claim against a biglaw firm for an alleged conflict during the death throes of a large client. The firm vehemently denies the claim, which is being asserted by a liquidator. Post-insolvency entities, such as...
Women and success in biglaw
Posted on June 02, 2009Two recent articles worth checking out. American Lawyer explored the statistics showing that women lawyers are faring better in the AmLaw 200 than in the AmLaw 100. And the ABA and others reported on the new article by Kenneth Dau-Schmidt...
Egg on My Face(book)
Posted on June 01, 2009The Philadelphia Bar recently concluded that a lawyer should not use misleading tactics to gain access to an adverse witness's Facebook page. Today, the ABA Journal is covering another juicy legal ethics story involving Facebook. According to the story, "[a]...
Empathy and clothing
Posted on May 30, 2009After my post on the NYT column on lawyers? dress, there was an interesting discussion of the ?minefield? it presents. Since that time, there?s also been an interesting discussion of the value of empathy on the site, which got me...
Mercer Symposium on Ethics in Digital Issues Posted on Line
Posted on May 29, 2009Monroe Freedman, Andy Perlman, and a slew of others participated at Mercer Law School's symposium on ethical issues in the digital age, and the transcript is available on line, here. I urge you to read especially Professor Freedman's opening remarks,...
The Current State of PR Courses at American Law Schools
Posted on May 29, 2009I've been working with Professor Laurel Terry (Penn St.), the current chair of the AALS PR section, and Professor Margaret Raymond (Iowa), one the section's executive committee members, to learn more about the inner workings of a typical PR class...
US Supremes overrule Michigan v. Jackson
Posted on May 27, 2009In a 5-4 decision, in Montejo v. Louisiana (oral argument here), the US Supremes (urged on by the Obama administration, according to the NYT), over-ruled MIchigan v. Jackson. Articles here and here. Key graf: The high court, in a 5-4...
The Future of BigLaw Economics
Posted on May 27, 2009Here is a link to a forthcoming Suffolk Law Review article by Northwestern Professor John P. Heinz, the widely cited legal profession scholar. His entry in the Suffolk Law Review is entitled "When Law Firms Fail," and it has an...
On Empathy in Judging
Posted on May 24, 2009President Obama?s desire to appoint judges who have empathy is reminiscent of Ninth Circuit Judge John T. Noonan?s lecture and book, Persons and Masks of the Law. Judge Noonan (then a law professor at Berkeley) presented it as the Holmes...
Interesting Piece on Firm Restrictions on Twitter/Face book
Posted on May 22, 2009The article, and links to other articles, is here. In the academic area, I personally love facebook and the relationship building that it can achieve, but some people find it crosses student-professor boundary.
What not to wear?
Posted on May 22, 2009The NYT has a story about lawyer fashion faux pas and the possible effect on a client's ability to obtain justice (here). I have recently blogged about the Law Society of Alberta's requirement that students taking the bar admission course...
Moral sensitivity - not quite...
Posted on May 21, 2009The law governing lawyers and public officials is relatively extensive, but I've always thought that even when understood as a matter of legal compliance, keeping out of ethical difficulties does require some moral sensitivity, an ability to feel when something...
Prosecutor turned defense counsel turned (alleged) conspirator to murder witnesses
Posted on May 21, 2009NYT has the story and a profile of Paul Bergin.
Lockstep compensation in Asia
Posted on May 20, 2009This article recounts the use of lockstep compensation in Asia. Although lockstep is considered a "relic" in the US, when handled properly it can incent team playing within a firm.
Biglaw lawyers: never out of reach?
Posted on May 20, 2009This amusing article recounts the efforts of a Cleary partner to ban those "out of office" email messages. According to that partner, the messages are acceptable only while the lawyer is on a long flight, and even then the lawyer...
Amazing lawyer ads
Posted on May 19, 2009If, like me, you derive a guilty pleasure from cheesy TV ads for lawyers, check out the entries on this page. It begins with my all-time favorite: Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro.
Responding to Mr. Smartass
Posted on May 19, 2009If you teach legal ethics long enough, you will eventually meet Mr. Smartass. He's the guy at a wedding, bar mitzvah, or some other social gathering who is, put simply, a smart ass. You're introduced to him, and he quickly...
Guest Blogger Alex Long's Ten Things You May or May Not Know About Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.
Posted on May 18, 2009Professor Alex Long has passed along this wonderful post in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision in the Caperton case: Thanks to Andrew Perlman, who invited me to blog a little about the Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. case...
Ten Things You May or May Not Know About Caperton -- Part II
Posted on May 18, 2009This is a continuation of guest blogger Alex Long's first post on Caperton, which can be found here. (6) It wasn?t just the general election that was ugly. The Democratic primary, in which McGraw was challenged by circuit court judge...
Op-eds offer defense strategies for authors of torture memos
Posted on May 17, 2009Michael Stokes Paulsen and Victoria Toensing outline possible defense strategies for the authors of the torture memos. Brian Tamanaha disagrees with Paulsen.
Updates on biglaw lawyers near financial scandals
Posted on May 14, 2009Wall Street Journal's law blog has updates on Tom Sjoblom of Proskauer, who represented Stanford Financial, and on Mayer Brown's Joseph Collins, the former outside counsel to Refco whose criminal trial started this week.
Wow
Posted on May 13, 2009$72m malpractice verdict based on inequitable conduct theory. Be careful out there. DM
The Evolving Law on Metadata
Posted on May 13, 2009There are two new ethics opinions on metadata, one from New Hampshire (New Hampshire Bar Ass'n Ethics Comm., Op. 2008-2009/4, 4/16/09) and another from Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Bar Ass'n Comm. on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Formal Op...
Piomelli on Democratic Lawyering
Posted on May 13, 2009Professor Ascanio Piomelli of the UC Hastings College of Law has posted a new paper entitled ?The Challenge of Democratic Lawyering? on SSRN. The abstract is as follows: This essay, written for the Fordham Law Review's symposium on The Lawyer's...
C.S. Peirce on law and the search for truth
Posted on May 13, 2009In comments on an exchange on the infamous non-hang-up hang-up case, Monroe left me and Clare with the query: What ever happened to the search for truth? That sent me in search of my misplaced copy of The Essential Peirce,...
Bill Henderson: larger firms lurching toward new equilibrium?
Posted on May 12, 2009Bill Henderson's latest piece -- on market readjustments by biglaw -- is cross-posted here and here.
Eat and Drink with Legal Ethics Professors
Posted on May 11, 2009Here is the invitation from Professor Alberto Bernabe-Riefkohl: On behalf of the Professional Responsibility section of the AALS and The John Marshall Law School, I'm delighted to invite you to an informal dinner at this month's National Conference on Professional...
The Silliest Legal Ethics Rule?
Posted on May 10, 2009Now taking nominations. Near the top of my list is the rule that malpractice claims are not assignable, a rule recently affirmed by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in a case showing how unsound the rule is (2009 WL 367219)...
Expose'! ABA Covers Up Lincoln's Zealous Representation!
Posted on May 10, 2009A few months ago, the ABA Journal had a cover issue about Abraham Lincoln that included a number of anecdotes about Lincoln as a lawyer. I submitted the following letter, which was not published: To judge by the highly acclaimed...
Another Urgent Request for Signatures
Posted on May 09, 2009I was asked yesterday by Reprieve lawyers for a Declaration regarding their professional responsibilities in another Guantanamo case. The following is a hurried draft. Please let me know if you are willing to to sign on (and if you have...
Important development from Texas trial court judge in Charles Hood death penalty case
Posted on May 08, 2009There's been an encouraging development about the death penalty imposed on Charles Hood by the state of Texas. (Nod to Clare Pastore, who teaches legal ethics at USC.) You may recall that the original trial judge -- the one who...
Daniel Markovits Responds to Alice Woolley
Posted on May 08, 2009Alice Woolley recently offered a critique of Daniel Markovits's new book in two posts (here and here). Daniel Markovits has sent along this response: I am of course delighted and grateful that Alice Woolley is paying attention to A Modern...
Blown statute of limitations for possible discipline of Professor Yoo?
Posted on May 07, 2009Wow. (Nod to Volokh) Perhaps the Pennsylvania bar will lack the ability to investigate and/or discipline Professor Yoo for his role in drafting the torture memos, because they have a four year statute of limitations. (Yoo is licensed in Pennsylvania.)...
Would Anyone Favor Excluding This?
Posted on May 07, 2009From a story by Zusha Elinson of The Recorder: It was just eight years ago that then-Marvell general counsel Matthew Gloss, patent attorney Eric Janofsky and VP of engineering Kaushik Banerjee rang up Virginia Wei, an in-house lawyer for rival...
NYT: Criminal charges for OLC lawyers are not likely; referrals to state bars are likely
Posted on May 06, 2009Story here. (nod to Volokh) We've been waiting for the DOJ report from its Office of Professional Responsibility. The NYT says that DOJ is unlikely to prosecute the lawyers criminally, but probably will refer the lawyers to the states bars...
Association of [California] Discipline Defense Counsel
Posted on May 06, 2009Here's the new website for the Association of Discipline Defense Counsel -- which appears to be focused to California-based defense counsel.
Update: Correspondence with Dean Chemerinsky about his op-ed in the LA Times
Posted on May 06, 2009In the comments to an earlier post, five legal ethics teachers (3 professors; 2 adjuncts, including me) concluded that Dean Chemerinsky erred in his recent LA Times op-ed. Chemerinsky was commenting on a southern California political race where one of...
Women lawyers rate bosses by gender, with surprising results.
Posted on May 06, 2009Summary here; article here. Key graf: "Among female lawyers under 40 who thought gender matters, 58 percent said male supervisors give better direction, give more constructive criticism (56 percent) and are better at keeping confidential information private (64 percent)...
My Anxieties, at Least
Posted on May 05, 2009I've enjoyed reading David McGowan's posts on the OLC memos, and I'm particularly grateful for his pointer to the Federalist Society debate, which I'm still digesting. On his main post below, on anxieties about the rule of law, David argues...
Is diversity really the enemy of community (more on Markovits)?
Posted on May 05, 2009In the last chapter of his book Markovits argues that the moral worth lawyers obtain by recasting the vices of lying and cheating as the virtues of fidelity and effacement, requires that lawyers belong to a community strong enough to...
Is there more to this story?
Posted on May 04, 2009A lawyer put in jail over night for (apparently) failing to record properly the court's direction in an order given to the judge to sign (here)...
Are law schools gaming the numbers (part 26)?
Posted on May 04, 2009Interesting analysis here from Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog. It seems that some law schools opted not to disclose their graudates' employment rates so that they could avail themselves of the default value that would be factored into the rankings...
Markovits and the Immanent Rationality of the Law Governing Lawyers
Posted on May 02, 2009I am reading for review Daniel Markovits' A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age. The book raises almost innumerable topics on which to blog; for starters I am intrigued by Markovits attempt to construct the immanent rationality...
At The Federalist Society
Posted on May 01, 2009At the risk of channeling too much Stanley Fish (though there are worse things to do in a blog), I'm stealing the title of one of his essays to link to this debate on the OLC memos, hosted by the...
Sticker Shock
Posted on May 01, 2009There's a fascinating brouhaha about whether Congressional staffers can testify about the meaning of legislation (well, fascinating to me), and amongst the filings is a fee statement showing that 2008 graduates are being billed at $460 an hour... I know...
Chemerinsky on Concealing a Client's Identity
Posted on May 01, 2009Here's a great op-ed from UC Irvine Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky about a political race for Los Angeles city attorney. One of the candidates is refusing to disclose the identity of any of his former clients, citing confidentiality concerns. Dean...
Professor Tamanaha, the OLC, and the Rule of Law
Posted on May 01, 2009In my earlier post on two anxieties of the law I dismissed as "hyperbole" the idea that the OLC memoranda threaten the rule of law. One might read that as suggesting that Brian Tamanaha's rule of law concerns, to which...
The Legal Ethics of Online Investigations
Posted on April 30, 2009I posted a link yesterday to a story about the ethics of using misleading tactics to gain access to quasi-private Facebook information. Today, the ABA eJournal posted this story about a Fordham Law School professor who asked his class to...
Character & Fitness in Action
Posted on April 30, 2009Sometime in the mid-1970s, the deans of New York law schools were summoned to a meeting with the leadership of the N.Y. Character and Fitness Committee. The agenda was a proposal to enhance the exclusionary powers of the committee. At...
Conjectures About the OLC Memos and Two Anxieties of the Law
Posted on April 30, 2009Two anxieties seem to me to suffuse much discussion of OLC memoranda concerning abusive treatment of prisoners. One anxiety is whether professional competence should be a defense to moral criticism. Another is whether there is such a thing as an...
Three Reasons to Favor Inquiry Into the OLC Memoranda
Posted on April 30, 20091. Fairness to the lawyers involved. Some but not all work product has been released and the actions of the relevant lawyers have been debated, with much critical discussion. It would be fair to free them from constraints of privilege...
The OLC Memos and the Move to Motive
Posted on April 29, 2009Writing at Balkinization, Brian Tamanaha raises some interesting points about the factual premises of recently released OLC memos. (See this and this.) His basic arguments are: (1) OLC lawyers could not have relied in good faith on the representations of...
ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility (May 27-30, in Chicago)
Posted on April 29, 2009The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility invites you to attend the 35th National Conference on Professional Responsibility. The Conference will be held on May 27-30. 2009, at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago, IL and the schedule is here. The Conference...
Legal Ethics and Facebook
Posted on April 29, 2009The Philadelphia Bar Association's Professional Guidance Committee recently issued an opinion concerning a lawyer's proposed investigation of a witness's Facebook page. The lawyer wanted to ask a third person -- someone whom the witness would not recognize -- to send...
Big Law Associate's Wrongful Termination Suit Can Proceed
Posted on April 29, 2009Here are the allegations: A Massachusetts lawyer discovered child pornography on a client's computer and told his firm about it. The firm instructed the lawyer to destroy the child pornography, and the lawyer refused to do so. The lawyer (correctly,....
$14M dreams in smoke...
Posted on April 27, 2009Some of you may recall that a proposed settlement of a class action against TD Visa had included a provision that $14M be placed in a fund for distribution to the 16 Canadian common law law schools for teaching related...
Liars and character
Posted on April 27, 2009A couple of days ago Rob posted on the case of Loren Friedman, who falsified his transcript in applying to law firms, and also omitted to provide information about his past academic failures when applying to law schools. For those,...
Welcome to Our Newest Co-Blogger, Professor Roy Simon
Posted on April 26, 2009We are delighted that Roy Simon has agreed to join us as a co-blogger. Roy is the Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor of Legal Ethics at Hofstra Law School and is the director of Hofstra's Institute for the Study of Legal...
Banana lawyer slips, tort cases fall
Posted on April 26, 2009On April 23rd, a California judge overseeing "banana" cases against Dow Chemical and Dole Foods dismissed two cases on the spot, from the bench, because of what American Lawyer writer Ben Hallman calls "the most egregious plaintiffs lawyer extortion and...
Update on Judge Keller's Case
Posted on April 25, 2009There's a story in the current issue of The Texas Lawyer updating the Keller case and discussing the Expert Witness' Declaration. It can be accessed by Googling The Texas Lawyer and clicking on the current issue. (I would provide a...
Federal prosecutors hire biglaw defenders
Posted on April 24, 2009The assistant US attorneys who prosecuted Senator Ted Stevens have hired famous, big name white collar defense lawyers, now that the prosecutors are themselves under investigation. (via Instapundit)
Judicial Selection in Tennessee
Posted on April 24, 2009Tennessee is currently debating how it should select its judges. The story, which involves an unusual robocalling campaign, is here and here. Let's hope that Tennesseans don't forget about the Caperton case and the various problems associated with electing judges...
DOJ seeks to overturn precedent prohibiting questioning without counsel present
Posted on April 24, 2009Articles here and here about DOJ's efforts to have Michigan v. Jackson overturned.
Lying to Judges
Posted on April 23, 2009In 2006, I published an article, ?In Praise of Overzealous Representation ? Lying to Judges, Deceiving Third Parties, and Other Ethical Conduct,? 34 Hofstra L.Rev. 771. A 2008 article in Case Western Reserve L. Rev. purports to rebut that article...
Maybe we should focus more on business school ethics?
Posted on April 23, 2009What I find most insightful about the sordid tale of transcript-falsifying lawyer Loren Friedman is that his business school does not seem to care.
Is a government lawyer a "cause lawyer?"
Posted on April 22, 2009I've always understood the "cause lawyer" as existing in some tension with the client-driven approach to lawyering, and thus I would never have classified a government lawyer as a cause lawyer. Because a government lawyer dedicates her services to a....
Legal ethics exam from 1926
Posted on April 21, 2009Jim Fischer passed along this legal ethics exam from 1926. I'd love to know the recommended answer for the question about coaching witnesses. Download Old exam
New USDC (D. Mass.) case: real estate closings not UPL
Posted on April 21, 2009New look at a classic issue: what law-related aspects of real estate commerce are the practice of law? The lawyers lose this one. Download UPL
David Luban's Torture Memo
Posted on April 21, 2009The Unreleased Torture Memo David Luban "I remember well the pain of those of us who served our country even when the policies we were carrying out were unpopular or could be second-guessed. We in the Intelligence Community should not...
Rule Revisions in Kentucky
Posted on April 17, 2009Kentucky has adopted extensive revisions to its rules of professional conduct. The changes go into effect on July 15, 2009 and can be found here.
No prosecutions for "enhanced interrogations" -- including no prosecutions of the lawyers?
Posted on April 17, 2009It seems clear that the Obama DOJ will not be prosecuting the CIA personnel who carried out the -- take your pick -- torture or enhanced interrogations. Sonja Starr believes that it's likely that the lawyers won't be prosecuted either....
Right to Counsel Report
Posted on April 17, 2009?Justice Denied: America?s Continuing Neglect of Our Constitutional Right to Counsel? has just been released by The Constitution Project. It is a report and recommendations of the National Right to Counsel Committee, which has been working on the project for...
Imminent U.S. News Frenzy
Posted on April 15, 2009The annual fascination with the U.S. News & World Report rankings is about to begin, with the official release coming in the next few days. The most notable addition is a ranking of evening programs. Judging from this news announcement...
Can informal networking lead to DQ? (Silicon Valley)
Posted on April 15, 2009Story here. It appears that an individual is claiming an attorney client relationship arising not out of a formal relationship but rather out of what some might call networking. The DQ motion also says that the law firm's investment arm...
Would you take a year off for one-third the salary?
Posted on April 13, 2009Skadden seems to be surprised by how many associates have accepted the firm's offer to take a year off of work in exchange for one-third pay. Perhaps that's a sign that Skadden associates are not as motivated by money as...
Ambition, public confidence, and judicial ethics
Posted on April 13, 2009Is there anything problematic if a judge makes decisions with an eye toward public acclaim? Phrased more charitably, is there anything wrong if the judge desires to inspire public confidence in the judicial system? We've now had two US Supreme...
Draft of Expert Opinion in Judge Keller Matter
Posted on April 11, 2009I have written a draft of an expert witness opinion in the Judge Keller matter. If anyone would be interested in seeing it, please email me at lawmhf@hofstra.edu. (John, my efforts to email you a copy have apparently failed.)
Wisconsin diploma privilege under attack
Posted on April 11, 2009Althouse posted about it. I didn't know that the issue had reached the Seventh Circuit.
Gillibrand: Declining, Communcation, and Withdrawal
Posted on April 11, 2009In an Editorial Observer article in the NYT yesterday, Dorothy Samuels quotes Steve Gillers on the Gillibrand/Phillips Morris matter. According to Samuels, Steve objects to publicly criticizing lawyers for their choice of clients. As I have explained elsewhere, I consider...
Expert Opinion in Judge Keller Matter - Signing On
Posted on April 11, 2009There is now a draft suitable for review by anyone who might be interested in signing on. Please let me know if you would like to see it. lawmhf@hofstra.edu
New blog: The Ethical Quandary
Posted on April 10, 2009Check it out. Lots of good stuff, from the Hinshaw firm, which does a lot of legal ethics, risk management, and professional liability work.
Rule 1.10 Developments
Posted on April 10, 2009As many of you know, the ABA House of Delegates recently amended Model Rule 1.10. The stated goal was to permit screening of laterally hired attorneys in order to prevent the imputation of a conflict of interest. The problem, as...
Lawyering to undo a bankruptcy court's ruling: when does it cross the line?
Posted on April 08, 2009Suppose you're a lawyer in US bankruptcy court and your client is ordered to transfer overseas assets. You believe that under the local law of the foreign jurisdiction, compliance with the US court's order would be unenforceable, if not illegal....
Story about Judge Bybee's work at the OLC
Posted on April 08, 2009I've read a lot about Professor John Yoo's stint at OLC, but less about Jay Bybee's time there. This article fills in some gaps.
Sad irony: State Bar victimized by (alleged) staff embezzler
Posted on April 08, 2009We've all heard countless times about a solo practitioner facing disciplinary consequences because the lawyer's admin embezzled funds. Here's news that the State Bar of California may have suffered a similar fate at the hands of a staffer. The investigator's...
Irate at Irell
Posted on April 07, 2009This opinion from the Central District of California contains so many ethics issues that it sounds like a legal ethics exam question. In the end, the judge has some rather harsh words for Irell & Manella for jointly representing a...
Our Most Serious Ethical Issue
Posted on April 03, 2009The young lawyer who resigned from the Walton County Public Defender?s office because she was not able to give her client?s the effective assistance of counsel, is unquestionably a hero. Unfortunately, she is also guilty of serious and sustained unethical...
Stories of Note
Posted on April 02, 2009Adam Cohen, a prominent journalist on legal issues, is getting a lot of attention for this editorial. He paints a rather dire picture of the future of American law firms, and unlike John Steele's post from yesterday, this story is...
Globetrotting Law Firms
Posted on April 02, 2009Jay Krishnan has posted a new paper, Globetrotting Law Firms. He workshopped this here at St. Thomas last semester, and it is well worth a read. Here's the abstract: Despite the current financial crisis, prestigious American and British law firms...
state bar proposes to cap profits per partner
Posted on April 01, 2009ghastley news for partners but my prediction is: partners are never gonna give them up (link).
Survey Says...
Posted on March 30, 2009Fifty-five legal ethics professors responded to my survey, which asked people to identify the other courses that they teach. There are roughly 500-600 people who regularly teach legal ethics (at least in the United States), which means that the response...
Spanish court ponders criminal charges against US "torture memo" lawyers
Posted on March 29, 2009It's not clear that the assertion of universal jurisdiction will proceed, but it's interesting that the focus is on the lawyers and not the policy-makers or the interrogators. Story here.
Judging lawyers by their clients (part 58); Karen Gillibrand and the tobacco industry
Posted on March 29, 2009It's a familiar topic at this blog: do we judge lawyers by their clients? The latest episode has been sparked by a NYT article about Karen Gillibrand's work for tobacco industry clients. Sandy Levinson blogs on it here. There appears...
Judging lawyers by their clients (part 58); Kirsten Gillibrand and the tobacco industry
Posted on March 29, 2009It's a familiar topic at this blog: do we judge lawyers by their clients? The latest episode has been sparked by a NYT article about Kirsten Gillibrand's work for tobacco industry clients. Sandy Levinson blogs on it here. There appears...
Positive Development for the LSC
Posted on March 27, 2009Congress is considering legislation that will increase funding for the underfunded Legal Services Corporation and lift many of the restrictions on the kind of legal work that recipients of LSC funding can perform. The story is here.
Odds and ends (March 27, 2009)
Posted on March 27, 2009Should a supreme court justice for the state of Washington have recused himself in a case that affected his own lawsuit? . . . . In the wake of sexual relations between a lawyer and legal aid clients, there's discussion...
Other teaching interests?
Posted on March 26, 2009I know that law teachers who read this blog typically teach legal ethics/professional responsibility. But I've always wondered what is the most common other teaching subject in a legal ethics scholar's course package. The question is not simple curiosity...
Tung Yin (Iowa) on "lawfare" and access to US courts
Posted on March 26, 2009Tung Yin (Iowa) has published this paper, "Boumediene and Lawfare," which assesses the possibility that giving detainees and terrorists access to US courts will lead to debilitating "lawfare." Among the other techniques considered in the article, Yin analyzes the monitoring...
Is this unusual?
Posted on March 26, 2009A proposed settlement in a class action against a Canadian bank includes a requirement that the bank contribute $14 million to a fund which will be used for initiatives related to legal ethics and professionalism at the 16 Canadian common...
Supreme Court holds that trial lawyer's advice to drop insanity plea was not ineffective assistance of counsel
Posted on March 25, 2009Opinion here. News story here. The high court took a practical view in a case where criminal defense counsel had urged the client to drop a plea of "not guilty by insanity." The opinion is a useful glimpse into the...
Con man's scam included false references to famous lawyers
Posted on March 24, 2009The SEC has sued Albert Hu for allegedly raising $5 million in investor money. Hu told investors that he was represented by reputable law firms -- which didn't actually represent him.
Keep contemporaneous time sheets -- and then be candid with the court.
Posted on March 24, 2009Story here.
Ted Schneyer to speak at Georgetown Center for the Study of the Legal Profession (April 20th)
Posted on March 24, 2009He'll be speaking one of the most interesting current topics "Developments in the UK and Australia: How Might They Affect the Regulation of the Legal Practice in in the United States?" The event and reception will be held at the...
What a Reasonable Person "Might," "Could," and "Would" Do
Posted on March 24, 2009The Comment to Canon 2 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges defines appearance of impropriety as follows: "An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds, with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances disclosed by a reasonable inquiry,...
Do law firm layoffs make economic sense?
Posted on March 17, 2009Law prof Joan Williams and her colleagues at the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) argue that it would be more economically sensible for firms to reduce attorney hours (and pay) than to lay off attorneys: The scenario that PAR examines...
Treating client security funds as state revenue
Posted on March 17, 2009Will budget deficits tempt states to dip into their client security funds? Apparently so.
The voters have spoken, the bastards!
Posted on March 12, 2009In this semester's law of lawyering class at UC-Berkeley, I initially banned teh internets (it's a series of tubes invented by a Nobel laureate who briefly attended law school). But I promised the students that they could vote on internet...
Bootle Inn of Court: The Old Days
Posted on March 12, 2009I'm a member of the William Augustus Bootle Inn of Court, and tonight at our meeting the group celebrated the judge's views of professionalism. Most of his speeches were based upon the old Canons, and it really struck me in...
The voters have spoken. [edited]
Posted on March 12, 2009[Just in case this post might be misunderstood, I've substantially edited it.] In this semester's law of lawyering class at UC-Berkeley, I initially banned internet access but allowed them to vote mid-way through the semester on whether they wanted it...
Drafting Problem with New Model Rule 1.10
Posted on March 09, 2009The recently amended Model Rule 1.10 permits a law firm to erect a screen around a recently hired attorney to prevent that lawyer's conflicts from being imputed to the rest of the firm. At least that's what I thought it...
Sanctions for Former OLC Lawyers?
Posted on March 09, 2009An article in today's New York Times surveys yet another iteration of the debate over the role of lawyers in the Bush Administration's Office of Legal Counsel in crafting legal policy regarding detainee policy, interrogation, and executive power. One reason...
A "Deformed Ethical Compass"
Posted on February 25, 2009So says the Houston Chronicle about Judge Sharon Keller in this editorial, which calls for Judge Keller's removal from the bench. You can find additional links about Judge Keller here.P.S. And if anyone needs additional evidence that electing judges is...
US District Judge Sam Kent Resigns in Plea Deal in Sex Case
Posted on February 24, 2009I practiced in Houston for many years, and had a few cases in his court, and yet had not heard a thing about this whole ugly mess. The plea was in connection with obstruction of justice. He may still keep...
How bad is it for lawyers? CLE on "An Introduction to Carbon Markets for Lawyers"!
Posted on February 24, 2009In the spirit of Andy's recent post, the title of this CLE caught my eye. I know that times are bad for lawyers, but for goodness sake, we've not been reduced to commodities, have we?
Hricik, Lubet Subject to Discipline?
Posted on February 24, 2009Talk about timing... below I posted a piece about Judge Kent resigning, and Steven Lubet (go Wildcats!) pointed to his earlier piece in the Greenbag about Judge Kent.Then I came across this article, reciting instances where lawyers have been disciplined...
2009 SALT Salary Survey
Posted on February 23, 2009Here is the newest law professor salary survey. Normally, the information appeals to prurient interests (especially the Harvard figures), but these numbers will be worth tracking over the next couple of years to see how the economic chaos affects law...
An Imminent Surge in Legal Malpractice Claims?
Posted on February 23, 2009So says this law.com story, which suggests that a surge is coming due to the sagging economy. I know many readers of this blog litigate malpractice claims or serve as experts in them. Any early signs of an increase?
A Real Gas of a Case
Posted on February 23, 2009This complaint really has nothing to do with legal ethics, but it is too funny not to post. It involves a trademark dispute between the makers of an iphone application called "ifart," which apparently simulates various types of flatulence, and...
Biglaw lawyer makes "noisy withdrawal" to SEC
Posted on February 20, 2009Story here. And here. Heaven help the lawyer whose client (allegedly) turns out to be a ponzi scheme.
Loose lips sink ships
Posted on February 20, 2009The blawgosphere is buzzing with this story about a biglaw partner who revealed his firm's layoff plans by openly discussing them on the phone while on a commuter train. These things do happen, and perhaps the example will serve as...
More on Metadata
Posted on February 20, 2009Andy and I have written and talked extensively about metadata, the 'hidden' information that often accompanies word files. It can show when a document was created, when it was revised, who authored it, and, in some instances, show the revisions...
Judicial Opinions Affected by Campaign Contributions? Shocking! (Not)
Posted on February 20, 2009Two political scientists recently found that, in states that elect their supreme court judges through a partisan process, there is a strong link between the sources of the monetary contributions that the judges receive and how the judges decide their...
The Duty to Avoid Wrongful Convictions: A Thought Experiment in the Regulation of Prosecutors
Posted on February 20, 2009That's the title of a new article by Fordham's Bruce Green and San Diego's Fred Zacharias. In light of the recently revised Model Rule 3.8 and various scandals involving wrongful prosecutions and convictions, the article is certainly timely. Here's the...
Speaking of Elected State Court Judges...
Posted on February 20, 2009A few hours after I raised concerns about whether elected state court judges can adequately protect the rights of unpopular parties, my colleague, Gabe Teninbaum, sent me this link. It's a story about judicial misconduct charges against the notoriously pro-execution...
Against Professionalism?
Posted on February 19, 2009Temple law prof Richard Greenstein has posted his new paper, Against Professionalism. (HT: Solum) Judging from the abstract, it looks like a must-read for the legal ethics crowd: In this article I argue that when an "occupation" becomes a "profession,"...
Law School Hiring: Congeniality or Geniality as the Test?
Posted on February 18, 2009This is slightly off topic, but fascinating, discussion about law faculty hiring decisions. For those of you outside academia in private practice, it probably is pretty jarring.
Wiki Brief update
Posted on February 17, 2009The copyright blog has an update, here. The sky is not falling: UPL is not running rampant.
The Stimulus Package Didn't Change Things over the Weekend
Posted on February 16, 2009On Friday I posted a series of articles about law firms in this economy. There's an interesting piece here in the American Lawyer describing the "crunch" that may occur when existing lawyers stop voluntarily leaving at the historic pace and...
Why the proposed 1.10 revisions give me pause . . .
Posted on February 16, 2009I'm on the fence regarding the proposed revisions to Rule 1.10, and at the ABA's mid-year meeting I heard both Larry Fox (opposing the revisions) and Bob Mundheim (supporting the revisions) make their respective cases persuasively. One passage from the...
The New Model Rule 1.10
Posted on February 16, 2009Here is the text of the Rule as it was adopted this afternoon. If you missed the debate and would like to watch it, the ABA will be posting it here starting Tuesday morning. If you would prefer a brief...
Live Webcast of Model Rule 1.10 Deliberations
Posted on February 15, 2009On Monday, February 16th, the ABA will webcast its deliberations concerning the proposed amendment to Model Rule 1.10. The link to the webcast is here. The ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility has posted numerous resources related to the proposal...
Prosecutors in Senator Stevens Case Held in Contempt
Posted on February 14, 2009District Judge Emmet Sullivan found three DOJ lawyers in contempt. There's a lot of coverage: articles here, here, and here. I haven't been following this, but the latter one reports that one of the FBI agents involved wore a skirt...
Layoffs, salary cuts, and corruption. Have a nice day!
Posted on February 13, 2009800 Lawyer Layoffs. Read that bad news here.Associate salaries cut at Wolf Block. That one's here.Clifford Chance reducing redundant associates. Here.Corrupt PA Judges Plead Guilty. Yes, that bad news is here.But, on there is a small bright side.
What would it mean to be the #1 law school for ethics?
Posted on February 12, 2009I'm at the ABA's mid-year meeting in Boston, and today I learned that some legal ethics types have been talking with Bob Morse of U.S. News about the possibility of adding an "ethics" component to the law school rankings. It...
Ohio Firm with Initials J D (not necessarily in that order) Settles TM Suit
Posted on February 12, 2009As noted below, a firm with the initials JD, origins in Ohio, had sued a real estate firm for linking to its web site. The case settled, according to this report. I used to respect that firm. I never will...
Firm Publishes in its Advertising Brochure a Confidential Settlement Value
Posted on February 10, 2009The article from law.com about Quinn Emanuel's publication of a $65m settlement in a case involving facebook is here. "D'oh" as Homer would say.
Will you comment on my brief? If you do, are you my lawyer? Could it be UPL? Problems and Potential of Wiki Briefs...
Posted on February 09, 2009There's a huge back story to this RIAA suit about a music downloader, but the fundamental issue recent activity presents to this audience is interesting: lawyers post a draft response to a brief on line and ask for comments. (You...
The Ethics of State Ethics Sites
Posted on February 09, 2009I try -- try -- to keep my list of links to state ethics rules and state ethics opinions on hricik.com up to date, and so every year or so -- sooner if I have time and inclination -- I...
Do Lawyers Have a Moral Obligation to Write Well?
Posted on February 09, 2009Yes, says my colleague Professor Jack Sammons in this article on The Complete Lawyer. (See below about shameless plugs.) The article's not about competency, it's about morality. Jack's a way deeper thinker than I am, so I won't try to...
Malpractice Claims to Increase?
Posted on February 04, 2009I'm wondering if suits like this suit against Foley & Lardner charging over-billing and under-representation will rise, or have risen, with the awful economy? (Don't misunderstand me, I have no idea about the merits of this suit.) Anyone have any...
Curricular Review at Law Schools and Ethics...?
Posted on February 03, 2009Like many law schools (seemingly, all) we're in the curricular reform/review mode, and I was wondering what, if any, thoughts or models had been put forth changing PR. If you know of any, or have any ideas, I'd love to...
Rationalizing Judicial Regulation of Lawyers
Posted on February 02, 2009That's the title of a new and provocative article by Fordham's Bruce Green and San Diego's Fred Zacharias. The article contends that courts enforce standards of conduct differently in the disciplinary, litigation and civil liability contexts and suggests why and...
Demise of the billable hour again?
Posted on February 02, 2009Did everyone else notice that, yet again, the NYT is positing the demise of the billable hour (here) and that it was for a time the most e-mailed story on the NYT this weekend? I wonder about the fixation with...
Two new Stanford law review articles on lawyers' ethics
Posted on January 30, 2009One deals with the ethics of litigating employment cases relating to undocumented workers; the other, a response to David Luban, deals with military lawyers and the war on terrorism.
Welcome (and what brought you here today?)
Posted on January 28, 2009We respect the privacy of our visitors but can't help but wonder why so many people are visiting us today -- especially those visiting the entry on Top Ten Legal Stories of 2008. If you don't mind sharing, was that...
Georgetown conference on "Empirical Research on the Legal Profession" (and my thoughts about the "growing conjunction" between empirical legal studies and the practice of law)
Posted on January 28, 2009Details here. The line-up is excellent and the interplay between practitioners and academics will be intense, insightful, and informative for everyone. Mitt Regan, Jeff Baumann., and Carole Silver are heading up the conference.Btw, over the last five years we've seen...
Podcast on Daniel Markovits's New Book
Posted on January 26, 2009Yale's Daniel Markovits recently gave us a taste of his new book, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age. If that whetted your appetite, check out this podcast with Daniel, which is posted on Yale's web site.
Useful Links on the Right to Counsel in Civil Cases
Posted on January 26, 2009Thanks to Patrick O'Donnell for passing along this link (related to the right to counsel in truancy proceedings) and this one (related to removal proceedings in immigration court).
Selective waivers in Padilla v. Yoo?
Posted on January 22, 2009According to this story, which is unfortunately under a reg wall, in the suit brought by Jose Padilla against former OLC lawyer (and current UC-Berkeley Law prof) John Yoo, the government lawyers representing Yoo want to selectively reveal long-sought-after OLC...
Criticizing judges in public; is there a law school bubble? (revisited)
Posted on January 21, 2009WSJ Law Blog reports on this new 6th Circuit decision upholding sanctions against a lawyer for publicly criticizing judges. . . . . Endofesq reports on scathing criticism of the economics of the law school financial model -- some of...
To Screen or Not to Screen?
Posted on January 21, 2009The ABA's House of Delegates will soon be reconsidering an amendment to Rule 1.10 that would permit screening in some matters involving laterally hired attorneys. In August 2008, the House voted to postpone consideration of a similar proposal by a...
Another legal ethics question from Owen's Law Quizzer
Posted on January 19, 2009As I explained in an earlier post, I bought a copy of Owen's Law Quizzer (4th ed., 1914) at a used book store. The Quizzer, which has a series of questions and suggested answers on a variety of legal topics,...
A Confidentiality Puzzle
Posted on January 16, 2009WARNING: Only serious legal ethics wonks will want to read this post. (It was inspired by a student's recent query.) Imagine that I am a lawyer in Massachusetts, where Rule 1.6 says that I can disclose confidential information "to prevent...
Does disclosure solve the conflicts problem?
Posted on January 15, 2009This 2003 paper, The Dirt on Coming Clean: Perverse Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest, was just posted on SSRN (and picked up by Solum). The authors' conclusions, if accurate, have significant implications for our understanding of conflicts of interest...
Prof. Ackerman and Judge Bybee
Posted on January 14, 2009In an article on Slate Bruce Ackerman calls for the impeachment of Jay Bybee on the ground that Judge Bybee is a suspected war criminal and performed incompetently with regard to certain memoranda as head of the OLC. The memos...
Some Joke
Posted on January 13, 2009This report on political hiring for nonpolitical positions in the OCR is appalling. The attorney in question refers to his own statements ("as long as I???m here, adherents of Mao???s Little Red Book need not apply") as jokes the report...
Words to the Wise
Posted on January 13, 2009Law.com reports a San Jose defense attorney (and former deputy DA) has been arrested on charges of money laundering. The story recounts allegations that a client signed over to her a large check and then received from her a series...
Comment on Billing and Screening
Posted on January 12, 2009Billing by the itemized hour was introduced as a reform of the prior practice of sending the client an invoice reading simply:???For Professional Services $xxx,xxx.00.???As noted in a comment regarding screening, it???s only if we think that lawyers are dishonest...
When will Lynne Stewart's appeal be decided?
Posted on January 10, 2009I'm not familiar with Second Circuit practice, but isn't a year from oral argument a long wait? What could the court possibly be waiting for?
Legal ethics quiz from "Owen's Law Quizzer"
Posted on January 10, 2009At the Palo Alto library's used book sale, I picked up the 4th edition of "Owens Law Quizzer," which was "designed especially for the use of law students in review work and in preparation for examination for degrees in law...
California Supremes hear oral argument about conflicts for administrative agency lawyers who serve dual roles
Posted on January 08, 2009Unfortunately, the story is behind a registration wall here. The key graf: "Somach, a partner with Somach Simmons & Dunn, had come to the San Francisco court to argue that staff attorneys for administrative law agencies shouldn't simultaneously serve as...
"Kill the Billable Hour"
Posted on January 07, 2009Evan Chesler, presiding partner at Cravath, has called for the end of the billable hour.
CA Legislature: Please Fix This Problem
Posted on January 06, 2009The CA Supreme Court has rejected the argument that Fresno County's policy of paying a flat fee, including expenses, for criminal representation in a capital case creates a conflict of interest for purposes of Strickland analysis. I want to reserve...
One Worth Watching
Posted on January 05, 2009Takedown letters have become somewhat notorious in the academic IP community, so this suit against the Fenwick firm (courtesy of this Law.com story) bears watching.DM
Some Arguments for Screening
Posted on January 02, 2009Next month the ABA House of Delegates will take up Report 109, which recommends amending MR 1.10 so that the conflict of properly screened lawyer would not be imputed to other lawyers in the conflicted lawyer's firm. I favor the...
Year-end Blawg Reviews, Wrap-ups, and Lists
Posted on January 02, 2009I will add more as I find them or as you mention them in the comments. 2008 White Collar Crime Awards, from White Collar Crime Prof Blog. Law Blog Newsmakers of 2008, from the WSJ Law Blog. Our own Top...
Top Ten Legal Ethics Stories of 2008
Posted on December 31, 2008Here???s my Top Ten Ethics Stories of 2008, which is my 5th annual list. Your comments are welcome and I expect to revise this post based on those comments. Below the fold are the Honorable Mentions under each category. In...
The Madoff Scandal Slams Legal Services
Posted on December 31, 2008The recent economic turmoil is going to hit public interest organizations particularly hard, including public defender offices. Now it appears that Bernie Madoff's scandal is going to make the situation even worse. Quite a few prominent legal services organizations are...
Interesting Texas Ethics Opinion on Hiring All Lawyers Solely to DQ them
Posted on December 28, 2008The opinion, Texas Ethics Opinion No. 585, is available here. It addresses what I know sometimes happens: a party does initial interviews with key firms in a city or state to preclude each firm from representing the opponent in major...
Patrick O'Donnell's bibliography on terrorism
Posted on December 27, 2008One of our top topics here has been the role of lawyers in the Global War on Terrorism and in particular in the use of torture. One of our top commenters has been Patrick S. O'Donnell, who teaches philosophy at...
Two examples of Rule Three
Posted on December 19, 2008I teach six rules of survival, the third of which is: Assume everything you do or say will become publicly known.One reason for the rule is that you may be speaking to more people than you know. Today's news brings...
This Seems Right
Posted on December 19, 2008Law.com reports the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that an in-house attorney may maintain a wrongful discharge claim based on internal complaints even if she did not report the alleged misconduct to outside officials. It seems odd that the...
New Jersey Supreme Court Vacates Ethics Opinion on Super Lawyer Ads
Posted on December 17, 2008Last year, New Jersey's Committee on Attorney Advertising concluded that ads touting a lawyer's listing in the Super Lawyers publication are likely to create an unjustified expectation as to results and were impermissible. I offered some criticism of the opinion...
New York Adopts Long-Awaited Changes to Its Ethics Rules
Posted on December 17, 2008The amendments are significant and (finally) align the New York rules to the numbering and style of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. New York had been one of only a handful of jurisdictions that had not adopted the...
New York Adopts Long-Awaited Changes to Its Ethics Rules
Posted on December 16, 2008The amendments are significant and (finally) align the New York rules to the numbering and style of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. New York had been one of only a handful of jurisdictions that had not adopted the...
McCain Palin and Confidential Information
Posted on December 15, 2008Andy and I have repeatedly blogged and spoken about lawyer obligations to safeguard client confidences, and so this story from CNN caught my eye: their campaign sold off a bunch of Blackberries to recoup some money, but they left all...
Ethics Materials for City Attorneys
Posted on December 15, 2008At the request of our new city attorney, Jan Goldsmith, on Saturday we had an all-day seminar on ethics issues relevant to city attorneys. I am posting the materials here in the event other offices wish to use them. You...
The saga of Marc Dreier
Posted on December 14, 2008NYT story here. (free reg. req'd) What drove him to (allegedly) steal at least $35 million and hurt so many people? Who knows. Sometimes the ethics issue is straight-forward and the psychological issues are hard to fathom.
Update: the ethics of Patrick Fitzgerald's public comments
Posted on December 10, 2008The taped conversations of Gov Blagojevich were jaw-dropping, but how far can Patrick Fitzgerald go in his public statements? Model Rules 3.6 and 3.8(f) permit prosecutors to inform the public of certain information related to an accusation. But some of...
Laurel Terry on "The Future Regulation of the Legal Profession: The Impact of Treating the Legal Profession as 'Service Providers'"
Posted on December 10, 2008Laurel Terry's new paper is available on SSRN here. It traces the recent history of treating the legal profession as just one of many service providers, and offers predictions about where that approach will lead. What follows is my interpretation...
Interference with university-based law clinic's autonomy?
Posted on December 09, 2008Via Leiter's Law School Reports, here's a story about a university challenging a decision by a university-based law clinic to represent unionizing workers at another university. Here in the US we've had some controversies along those lines but I haven't...
David Giacaline on the ethics of value billing
Posted on December 03, 2008David Giacalone discusses the high price of legal services and the importance of value billing -- and he calls out this blog for failing to address the issue.
Mistake reveals firm's efforts to stem defections
Posted on December 03, 2008This article, making use of an inadvertently disclosed document, shows how one firm implemented financial penalties to stem partner defections. That's a murky area of firm management. The various techniques are rarely made public and there isn't much case law...
Bill Henderson on gaming the LSAT scores
Posted on December 03, 2008Bill Henderson has the data: the rule change regarding the reporting of LSAT scores has led students to take the test multiple times. (Bill cross-posts at Legal Profession Blog as well.)
Maine on Metadata: Don't Look
Posted on December 03, 2008The Maine Professional Ethics Commission of the Board of Bar Overseers has concluded (in opinion 196) that "it is ethically impermissible for an attorney to seek to uncover metadata, embedded in an electronic document received from counsel for another party,...
"You want to make society a better place? You want to eliminate poverty? Become a corporate lawyer"
Posted on December 03, 2008Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA) offers his views on teaching and being a corporate lawyer here.
ABA Opinion on Law Firm Ethics Counsel
Posted on December 02, 2008The ABA has issued an important opinion regarding the ethical obligations of lawyers who serve as their firm's ethics counsel. The opinion (08-453) is here, and the press release is here. (Thanks to the ABA Journal Daily News Letter for...
Incivility (and Dishonesty) in Support of "Civility"
Posted on December 01, 2008I have just read the opinion by Federal District Judge Stephen P. Froit of the Western District of Oklahoma, in Graves v. Mazda Motor Corp., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95600 (11/24/2008). He postures as a supporter of civility, but in...
The ABA's Top 100 Blawgs
Posted on December 01, 2008We made the list again despite our supposed "academic approach." The only reason that I note the "accomplishment" (and have pasted a link to voting here and on the side of the blog) is to make sure that we beat...
Update on the Ben Kuehne prosecution in Miami
Posted on December 01, 2008Wall Street Journal law blog has the latest. Are the feds criminalizing the practice of law?
Blog Ads and Worthy Causes
Posted on December 01, 2008Our blog ads caused some controversy a few weeks ago, so we thought it was worth mentioning what we're doing with the balance of our (modest) ad revenue for the year. We decided to donate the funds to the National...
Legal Ethics: New Editors, Renewed Energy
Posted on December 01, 2008(How's that for a slogan? Maybe if the law professor thing doesn't work out, I can get a job with an ad agency.) I wanted to post something here to welcome the new General Editor and Articles Editor of Legal...
Poll of UC-Berkeley students about ethics courses they'd consdider taking
Posted on November 26, 2008I recently had lunch with several professors who teach legal ethics at Fordham, and was struck by the variety of the course offerings they had. That prompted me to use the free version of the Survey Monkey site to poll...
Lawyer sanctioned; no "ethics hotline estoppel"; protective order trumped public access
Posted on November 26, 2008So many legal ethics issues involve competing duties. Here's an article, unfortunately behind a registration wall, about a California lawyer who was involved in a trade secrets case. There was a protective order in place but the opposing party put...
"You are a tyrant!"
Posted on November 25, 2008I gather that this is more a matter of judicial etiquette than judicial ethics, but when was the last time a sitting state supreme court justice heckled the United States Attorney General during a speech? (An incident made all the...
Can Louisiana lawyers blog?
Posted on November 25, 2008A recently filed lawsuit claims that the new Louisiana rules on lawyer advertising effectively prohibit blogging.
More on Public Defender Funding
Posted on November 24, 2008The New York Times has published this editorial about the public defender funding crisis. The editorial comes on the heels of this story that we highlighted on the blog a couple of weeks ago. It's nice to see the issue...
In Memoriam: Dean Mary Daly
Posted on November 24, 2008I was deeply saddened to learn this morning of the passing of St. John's Law Dean and ethics scholar, Mary Daly. She was a highly regarded legal ethicist and a widely admired dean and colleague. I only had the pleasure...
Big Ohio Firm's TM Suit Against Blockshopper Proceeding
Posted on November 21, 2008I don't want to mention its name for fear of a trademark suit, but there's a large law firm headquartered in Ohio (I hope Ohio doesn't start suing people who use its name) that has the initials J D (and...
Signs o the times? DLA Piper asks Partners to Contribute Capital.
Posted on November 21, 2008I'm in Minneapolis, so the reference to Prince seemed appropriate. DLA Piper has asked partners to contribute up to $150,000 to shore up its balance sheets, according to this report. Some said it was good, others bad, some characterized it...
Travel Time and Billing
Posted on November 14, 2008In In re Babcock & Wilson, 526 F.3d 824 (5th Cir. 2008), the court addressed whether the district court had erred in awarding a firm only 50% of its usual hourly rates for time its lawyers spent traveling, but not...
Supreme Court Cert in Judicial Case
Posted on November 14, 2008??? Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., No. 08-22. Did a West Virginia Supreme Court justice's failure to recuse himself from participation in the appeal of a $50 million jury verdict against a company whose chief executive officer was a...
Who holds executive privilege once Obama is president?
Posted on November 13, 2008Private practice lawyers know that when an organizational client changes management, the privilege is controlled by the new managers -- which may have very different agendas than the prior management. What will happen under the Obama administration when Congress issues...
Odds and Ends (11/13/08)
Posted on November 13, 2008Here's a nice post at Concurring Opinions about Oliver Tambo, the South African lawyer-activist who was Mandela's law partner. Read the comment by Patrick S. O'Donnell as well. In the closely-watched discipline trial of Santa Clara County (San Jose) prosecutor...
Shot from Canons (Again)
Posted on November 13, 2008I really do have to write the article, "The Perils of Sardonic Humor." Yet another illustration is in today's NYT, front page of the Arts section. It's about the non-existent Martin Eisenstadt, a Senior Fellow at the non-existent right-wing Harding...
Civ Pro, Ethics, and Appeals
Posted on November 12, 2008This Ninth Circuit decision breaks no new ground, but does remind us that in general there will be no immediate appeal of inadvertent production during discovery, because both there is no "final decision" and because as a general matter there...
Professor Daniel Markovits on His New Book
Posted on November 12, 2008We're delighted to pass along this post from Yale's Daniel Markovits concerning his new book, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age: Thanks to Andrew Perlman and the other editors of the Legal Ethics Forum for giving...
40th Anniversary Celebration for CLEPR at AALS
Posted on November 11, 2008Here's an announcement that I was happy to pass along: Some 40 years ago the Council on Legal Education and Professional Responsibility (CLEPR) began making nearly 11 million dollars in grants to law schools across the country to establish live-client...
The Growing Public Defender Crisis
Posted on November 08, 2008The New York Times is spotlighting the issue here, but the problem is hardly new. There have been numerous stories over the last couple of years (see here, here, and here) concerning the woefully inadequate resources in many public defender...
Prosecutors seek to reform state bar discipline process
Posted on November 08, 2008Santa Clara County prosecutors are supporting a legislative reform that would restrict the California State Bar's ability to impose discipline. The proposed reform follows the bar's recommendation that prosecutor Ben Field be suspended from the practice of law for three...
Conflicts Rules for Law Firms Doing Bailout Work
Posted on November 08, 2008The Treasury Department has established unusually strict conflicts rules for law firms performing bailout-related legal work for the Department. This story describes the provisions and includes extensive quotes from ethics experts Stephen Gillers and Nancy Moore.
"Porn Prosecutors Seek Recusal of Entire 9th"
Posted on November 07, 2008That headline certainly catches one's attention. In the appeal by accused pornorgrapher Ira Isaacs, the prosecutors have raised the possibility that the entire Ninth Circuit should recuse itself. (I'd link to the Daily Journal article, but that newspaper hasn't yet...
Odds and Ends (11/4/08)
Posted on November 04, 2008Peter Moser, a giant in the field of legal ethics, and beloved by friends and colleagures, passed away last month. . . . . Blawg Review No. 184, at the Faculty Lounge. . . . . What implication does the...
The Politics of Blog Ads
Posted on November 04, 2008David McGowan has raised a very interesting issue about the Prop 8 ads that were popping up for California readers of this blog (and perhaps other readers as well). When should we try to block certain ads? In general, we...
Please ignore the "Yes on 8" ad cycling through this blog
Posted on November 04, 2008I spent the morning standing in the rain urging voters to vote "No" on California's Proposition 8, which would amend our constitution to reinstate official discrimination against same-sex couples. I then come into school and am horrified to see a...
Cal Supremes ponder arbitration of client claims
Posted on November 04, 2008Thursday, the California Supremes hear an important case: can law firms enforce binding arbitration that follows the mandatory non-binding fee arbitration process? The larger law firms have filed amicus briefs in support of binding arbitration agreements...
Good luck on the MPRE exam this Saturday
Posted on November 02, 2008Here's a sampling of advice I've heard over the years. To be clear: I vouch only for the first answer. (1) Review a good outline, read the rules carefully, do lots of example questions, and get a good night of...
Odds and Ends (11/2/08)
Posted on November 02, 2008A US District Court judge has ordered the DOJ to provide copies of OLC memoranda about domestic surveillance, so that the court can conduct an in camera review. (How much you want to bet that the DOJ tries to take...
In re Charlisse C: Walls sometimes suffice in non-profit public law setting
Posted on October 31, 2008Decision here. This important case has a nice summary of basic conflicts law, and goes on to hold that non-profit, public law firm can sometimes use walls to cure successive representation conflicts. Unfortunately, it repeats the old insinuation that private...
Hadfield on Self-Regulation and Stagnation
Posted on October 31, 2008Gillian Hadfield has posted her essay, Legal Barriers to Innovation. (HT: Solum) Here's the abstract:The American Bar Association and its state-level brethren control and regulate the legal profession, determining who can provide legal services, how those providers are trained, and...
Burn your law school diploma!
Posted on October 31, 2008It's probably not the first step I would take on my path toward a simpler life, but who am I to second guess the effectiveness of someone else's public catharsis?
Pro Bono and the Hair Shirt
Posted on October 28, 2008Do lawyers slip the surly bonds of self interest when they work for free? Does the logic of agency and agency cost evaporate? Chief Judge Jacobs of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit thinks not. (Download 20081023_DJProBonoSpeech.pdf). Dean....
Guantanamo detainee and his appointed lawyer boycott proceeding
Posted on October 28, 2008Story here. "I will be joining Mr. Al-Bahlul's boycott, sitting silently at the table," the military lawyer said.
Welcome to Our Newest Guest Blogger, Professor Tanina Rostain
Posted on October 27, 2008Professor Tanina Rostain has joined us as our newest guest blogger. Her first post appears below. Welcome Tanina!
An American Law School in China
Posted on October 27, 2008A short while back, I had the opportunity to hear Jeff Lehman, former dean of Michigan Law School and president of Cornell University, describe his current project: an American-style law school under the aegis of Peking University in Shenzhen, China....
Your favorite PR text, and why?
Posted on October 27, 2008John Flood has posted a query at Legal Profession Blog, asking for opinions about PR texts. If you have a view, you might want to comment there. Below the fold I will repeat my earlier list of generalized PR texts....
WSJ: "Tribunal Supervisor Investigated for Abuse of Power at Gitmo"
Posted on October 27, 2008Story here.
Default Judgment for E-Discovery Abuse, Spoliation
Posted on October 23, 2008There's an article here about Gutman v. Levy, reportedly the first case in the Second Circuit entering default judgment for e-discovery abuse and e-spoliation. If you haven't been involved in e-discovery battles, the case is an eye opening read, both...
Kerfuffle alert: Erwin Chemerinsky, Judge Jacobs, and pro bono work
Posted on October 23, 2008When I read Erwin Chemerinsky's spirited defense of pro bono work and attack on Chief Judge Jacobs of the Second Circuit, I wondered if the article had correctly captured what Judge Jacobs actually said. Now comes news that perhaps the...
Privilege Issues for Tax and Regulatory Work Product
Posted on October 22, 2008Dennis Ventry (UC Davis) has published ???Protecting Abusive Tax Avoidance,??? which explores the application of privilege (attorney-client, work product, and tax-practitioner/client) in both the tax and regulatory contexts. The article provides a detailed discussion of the development of the work...
Our First Guest Blogger, Professor Dennis Ventry
Posted on October 22, 2008We've signed up our first guest blogger, Professor Dennis Ventry, who is already blogging below about his new article on privilege issues for tax and regulatory work product. Welcome Dennis!
Invitation to Guest Blog
Posted on October 21, 2008We're creating a rotating guest blogger slot for people who are interested in joining us for a short period of time, say a week or a month (whatever suits you). You can blog about a new article/book, a work in...
I knew this would happen someday: Patent Conflict Case
Posted on October 20, 2008Baker Daniels was representing a patentee, and the patent that issued covered another client's product, and then B&D sued the other client, at least according to the allegations in this article (registration required.) Obviously, suing a current client is adverse,...
Duty to Inform Former Client of Malpractice?
Posted on October 20, 2008Plenty of authority holds you most notify a current client if you discover you have committed malpractice. What about a former client? For example, suppose you err in calculating interest owed on a claim your client won, so your client...
Pool: Guess the course that predicts biglaw success
Posted on October 18, 2008Andy Perlman wrote about the new consultant's study on the factors that lead to long-term success at biglaw. The news story had a teaser: success at certain undisclosed course(s) was an accurate predictor of success, according to the consultant. I've...
Innovative Law Firm Hiring
Posted on October 17, 2008Last year, I complained that large law firms generally do a poor job of predicting which law students have the skills and personality to thrive in a large firm. The issue is significant because 80% of large law firm associates...
Poll-Watchers Needed
Posted on October 15, 2008If you are interested in being a poll-watcher, an email address to sign up is:my.barackobama.com/counselforchange
An Intriguing Aspect of Judicial Ethics
Posted on October 13, 2008The following is a note in my Contracts materials. I'd be interested in any comments. More on Judicial Realism, Judicial Legislation, and ?Romantic Judging? With regard to ?judicial legislation,? Justice Antonin Scalia has observed: ?Not only do state court judges...
Legal Education and the Economic Crisis
Posted on October 13, 2008Like many people, I've been thinking about how the economic crisis will affect my industry (in my case, legal education). From what I can tell, law schools will weather the storm reasonably well, but there are at least three plausible...
Henry Noyes on the increasing federaliziation of legal ethics
Posted on October 10, 2008Article here. Noyes focused on the new Rule 502. The other trend is the burgeoning use of federal agency power to regulate lawyers. While those agencies have always had power to regulate lawyers appearing before them, we've seen the SEC,...
Heller Dissolution Plan
Posted on October 09, 2008Posted here by Above the Law. Fascinating stuff if you find biglaw governance fascinating (which, sadly, I do).
Freedman, Perlman, and Hricik Set to Party in Macon
Posted on October 08, 2008That will get you to read this... On November 7, the Mercer Law School will host the 9th annual Georgia Symposium on Professionalism and Ethics. The topic for this years symposium is ?Ethics and professionalism in the Digital Age.? There...
Law Firms to Associates: Don't Panic
Posted on October 08, 2008There's an interesting article here about how firms are comforting associates with news that there are no immediate plans for layoffs. The demise of 118-year old Heller Erman after being a top 5 firm just a few years ago no...
How Long Should a Disciplinary Finding Haunt a Lawyer?
Posted on October 06, 2008There's an interesting discussion here on Carolyn Elefant's blog about that question. In part she writes: On the one hand, the public has the right to learn about a lawyer's past disciplinary record. At the same time, with the advent...
Partisanship and Legal Ethics
Posted on October 05, 2008In the comments to my unscientific political poll of blog readers below, Steve Lubet made a very interesting point. He says that most people approach legal ethics in a non-partisan way. Here was my response: I'm not sure that I...
Arizona Adopts In-House Counsel Practice Rule
Posted on October 05, 2008House counsel, who generally have only one client (the corporate employer), have historically had to comply with UPL rules that all lawyers face, even though those rules don't make a lot of sense applied to house counsel. Over the past...
The Biggest Legal Ethics Story of the Year?
Posted on October 05, 2008My choice is the current economic crisis. "Huh?" you ask. "What does legal ethics have to do with it?" Apparently nothing, and that's precisely my point. People are blaming the crisis on inadequate regulation of credit default swaps, inadequate regulation...
Your Political Leanings
Posted on October 03, 2008I'm curious about the political leanings of our blog readers. Nobody ever calls my house to poll me, so I'm left to fill in the dots in online polls. Here's your chance: How will you vote in November?For McCainFor ObamaLeaning...
No more clubbing
Posted on October 01, 2008Apparently Congress still has the political will to get at least some high-priority items taken care of, such as banning federal judges from accepting "honorary club memberships." This legislation is better than an earlier version, which would have banned judges...
LSATs and law schools: Has Michigan broken the spell?
Posted on October 01, 2008Article here. The LSATs aren't de jure required by the ABA accreditation standards, but are pretty close to de facto required. It'll be interesting to see if Michigan's experiment loosens the grip of LSATs on the admissions process. The de...
Interesting Batson Case: Systemic Permission to Allow Minorities Off Jury Duty Due to Economic and Social Concerns Violates Constitution
Posted on September 29, 2008Smith v. Berguis, __ F.3d __ (6th Cir. Sept. 24, 2008) presents an interesting question about Batson and the related cases. There's an interesting discussion of the case here, along with the question of whether economic bad times mean whiter...
sight digression re bridges to nowhere
Posted on September 29, 2008According to Instapundit, journalists and earmark-haters are talking about Joe Biden's alleged "bridge to nowhere" -- the Indian River Inlet bridge connecting Bethany Beach to Dewey Beach. You may have noticed that at this blog we almost never stray into...
Gitmo prosecutor steps down, citing ethical concerns about failures to turn over exculpatory discovery
Posted on September 25, 2008Story here.
Russia vs. Bank of New York
Posted on September 24, 2008This case sounds like a script from a far fetched legal thriller. Russia is suing the Bank of New York in a Russian (and allegedly corrupt) court, asserting RICO violations and claiming damages in excess of 20 billion dollars. The...
Greta Van Susteren: Law School Grades are Fraud
Posted on September 23, 2008Read about her comments, and watch a video of a discussion, here. She said it is impossible to tell the difference between an A, an A-,and a B+. I agree with that, to an extent, but the implication is wrong:...
Creative billing earns suspension
Posted on September 23, 2008We might reminisce nostalgically about the days of yore when a lawyer could hang out a shingle and provide services in exchange for a chicken or bushel of potatoes. It seems, however, that there are limits to the services that...
Book Review: Lawyers in the Dock
Posted on September 22, 2008"Satan killed Carol; Jesus saved the kids." Said by a jailed client whose fingerprint was found in the blood of a dead woman these words grab you and will not let go. No amount of exposition on MR 1.6, at...
Controversy Over Fordham's Legal Ethics Award
Posted on September 19, 2008Fordham, a Jesuit-run university, is getting some grief over the Law School's decision to give a legal ethics award to Justice Stephen Breyer. The cause for the concern appears to be that Justice Breyer authored the Stenberg opinion, which struck...
Cornell Law Review Colloquium on David Luban's Book
Posted on September 19, 2008The Cornell Law Review has published its colloquium on David Luban's book, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity. The colloquium contains numerous responses to the book from prominent legal ethicists as well as a reply from Professor Luban.
"Heller Ponders Dissolution"
Posted on September 18, 2008Sad story here. According to the article, the management committee has given tacit approval to a mass exodus that would finish off the firm. (Disclaimer: I know only what the article says.) Law firms are now big businesses, and it'll...
Inadvertent Receipt and Firm-Wide Disqualification
Posted on September 18, 2008Interesting case, depending on which set of facts you base your result on: the majority reasoned that if a lawyer at a firm inadvertently receives privileged documents and doesn't do as is required under state law -- notify and return...
Another Lawyer Learns that "Blacking out" Text Doesn't Remove it.
Posted on September 17, 2008A litigant used the "black out" feature in Acrobat to "redact" information, and learned that wouldn't work... when the other side cut and pasted the document into Word and showed that important, relevant information had been deleted. A blog about...
Jones Day's Trademark Suit Against Blockshopper.com
Posted on September 16, 2008There's an article here. Oh, and here. Oh, and this one. It's interesting, and frightening in the underlying information. There's a webpage, blockshopper.com that tracks who buys what property and for how much in certain upscale neighborhoods. Some Jones Day...
Washington Post on Surveillance Showdown
Posted on September 15, 2008This is worth reading. Well done Messrs Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller, and Goldsmith. DM
Worth Reading
Posted on September 15, 2008Two new ethics-related articles are worth a look. The first, by Jocelyn Stacey and co-blogger Alice Woolley, contains a valuable critique of the "good character" requirement that many Bars employ. The article focuses on Canada, but its findings seem applicable...
Leiter ranking Canadian law schools
Posted on September 13, 2008Is this a blessing or a curse? Law school rankings have come to Canada. Brian Leiter was hired by Macleans magazine to design measurement criteria, compile data and rank the schools. This year?s ranking ? the second that Leiter has...
Interesting Factoid About Yahoo Mail's Tracks
Posted on September 12, 2008I couldn't find this case on line, but Nat?l Economic Research Assocs., Inc. v. Evans, LECG Corp., 21 Mass. L. Rptr. 337 (Mass. Super. Ct. Aug. 3, 2006) addresses the purported fact that if you use a laptop to view...
Jane Mayer on Jess Radack and John Walker Lindh
Posted on September 11, 2008A thread on one of my listservs praised The Dark Side, Jane Mayer's account of some aspects of the "war on terror" so I bought it and have been reading it. I am sympathetic to her general theme. I have...
You can't keep a good man down: Bill Lerach runs "friends and family" program in prison
Posted on September 11, 2008Bill Lerach -- erstwhile scourge of corporate America, crusader against sleaze and graft, admitted felon -- is in prison lockdown after offering football tickets to a prison guard. Story here. I admire plaintiffs lawyers and respect much of what Lerach...
Former Judge and Prosecutor Admit to Affair
Posted on September 09, 2008The prosecutor and judge in Mr. Hood's case have admitted to having had an affair at around the time of Mr. Hood's trial. Mr. Hood's lawyers have sent this letter to Governor Rick Perry, asking him for a 30 day...
Op-Ed by Lawrence Fox About the Hood Case
Posted on September 08, 2008Executing Justice in the Texas Courts By Lawrence J. Fox They did not execute Charles Hood on June 17. On that night, the State of Texas did the right thing for the wrong reason. The execution was postponed not to...
The Hood Case, the Texas AG's Office, and Government Lawyers
Posted on September 08, 2008In a case that gets stranger by the day, an assistant attorney general in Texas has filed a grievance against her boss, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, concerning Mr. Abbott's involvement in the Hood case (background on the case here...
The Chronicle of Higher Education on Legal Ethics Experts
Posted on September 08, 2008The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a story about Bill Simon's controversial article on legal ethics experts. I think the Chronicle offers a balanced take on the issues, which were previously discussed here, here, here, and here, so if...
Clients, communication, and consumer protection
Posted on September 05, 2008In a thoughtful and interesting new article recently posted on SSRN, Denver University Law Professor Eli Wald critiques the current regime of legal ethics rules (primarily ABA Model Rule 1.4) that governs communications between attorneys and their clients...
Milavetz v. United States
Posted on September 05, 2008The Eighth Circuit has struck down a provision of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act that barred attorneys from advising clients to take on more debt before they file for bankruptcy protection. The provision violates attorneys' free speech...
Cal Supremes consider screens in public law context (John Steele)
Posted on September 04, 2008[Note: This post was by John Steele. Sorry for any confusion.] Story here. Let's see where they come out. The decision is due within 90 days. I've never been impressed with the argument that only lawyers in private practice can't...
Letter from Former Judges and Prosecutors to Texas Governor Perry
Posted on September 03, 2008A very impressive group of former judges and prosecutors has asked Texas Governor Rick Perry to delay Charles Hood's execution so that a full hearing can take place to determine whether the prosecutor in Hood's case was secretly sleeping with...
Most Interesting Law Professor Sidelines
Posted on September 03, 2008I mentioned below that Seton Hall Professor David Feige has co-created and is a writer for a new television show on the criminal justice system. I know that other law professors have interesting sidelines and was hoping to get a...
Law Professor Creates New Television Show About the Criminal Justice System
Posted on September 03, 2008Seton Hall professor and former Bronx public defender David Feige is a co-creator, writer, and supervising producer for a new television show called Raising the Bar. The show focuses on the criminal justice system and was inspired by Feige's book...
Interesting Bar Opinion on Electronic File Ownership, Organization, and Delivery
Posted on August 27, 2008In Formal Opinion 2008-1 (July 2008), the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York addressed various issues concerning the organization, delivery, and the ability to charge clients for delivery...
Law schools and "cooking the books"
Posted on August 26, 2008The WSJ has an article about law school rankings, prompting Larry Ribstein to suggest that the schools' efforts to game their rankings has disturbing similarities to accounting fraud. I agree, and it's the most powerful kind of teaching: teaching by....
New ABA Ethics Opinion on Legal Process Outsourcing
Posted on August 26, 2008A summary of the opinion (08-451) is here. For previous commentary on this issue and links to related stories, see here, here, and here.
In the News...
Posted on August 25, 2008Here's a summary of an interesting legal ethics case out of Delaware involving litigation misconduct. And here's a new and provocatively titled article from co-blogger Anita Bernstein called, Sanctioning the Ambulance Chaser. The article raises issues that are addressed to...
Thoughtful new decision on conflicts of interests and experts
Posted on August 22, 2008From the Southern District of West Virginia comes Rhodes v. DuPont, __ F.Supp.2d __ (S.D. W.Va. 2008), a thoughtful decision addressing conflicts of interest and experts. I've got an article about this issue on ssrn, here, and found this case...
Public Benefits from Lawyer Marketing
Posted on August 21, 2008Lawyer advertising is frequently criticized, but the criticisms often fail to consider how attorney advertising can benefit the public. For example, in this article, the authors claim that lawyers could reduce the rate of intestacy by learning to market wills...
Are more corporations relying on a single law firm?
Posted on August 20, 2008When I teach PR, I talk about the decline of law firms' influence over their corporate clients given the rise of in-house legal departments and the tendency of clients to farm legal work out to many different firms on a...
Hood Case Update
Posted on August 20, 2008Here is an update on the Hood case. You may recall that Hood is facing execution next month even though there is substantial evidence that the prosecutor in the case was secretly sleeping with the judge at the time of...
King & Spalding Socked with $90k Discovery Sanction
Posted on August 19, 2008This is one of those "think before you leap" lessons. Lawyer A says Lawyer B had obstructed discovery and misrepresented facts to the court. Judge says he's going to figure out who's telling the truth. He did so. Essentially, the...
Nonlawyer Disbarred by Federal Court
Posted on August 19, 2008No, that's not a typo. Read the story here.
Law and the Highwayman
Posted on August 14, 2008Earlier this summer Brad and I had a small exchange over whether there is any sort of prima facie moral obligation to obey the law, which one might then use to derive a theory of ethics for those who run...
Fun "Undercover Investigator" Case
Posted on August 14, 2008I've been meaning to write this case since it came out, because it's so interesting: In re Curry, 880 N.E.2d 388 (Mass. 2008). It's impossible to summarize, but essentially a lawyer thought a judge was biased and so set out...
Required Disclosure of Screen Names
Posted on August 13, 2008The Autoadmit controversy suggests to me that admissions boards should consider clarifying their rules to require the disclosure of screen names an applicant has used in the past. As the linked article suggests, such disclosure may be relevant. I understand...
Law Professors as Expert Witnesses on Ethics
Posted on August 12, 2008There?s an interesting column by Adam Liptak in today?s NYTimes about mercenary experts. I have neither the inclination nor the time to make a judgment on the merits of the dispute between Bill Simon and Bruce Green, but that dispute...
Comparative Legal Ethics -- reading suggestions?
Posted on August 12, 2008Next summer I'm going to be teaching American law students in Rome, and I'd like to do a course on comparative legal ethics. Has anyone taught such a course? Can anyone recommend some sort of introductory survey-type reader that is...
ABA Action on Model Rule 1.10 Put Off Until February 2009
Posted on August 12, 2008The ABA's House of Delegates has voted to postpone consideration of a proposed amendment to Rule 1.10 that would have permitted the screening of certain kinds of conflicts created by laterally-hired attorneys. I am told that the House of Delegates...
Could "Hot-Tubbing" Work Here?
Posted on August 12, 2008In Adam Liptak's New York Times article on the American legal system's distinctive approach to expert testimony, the most intriguing idea was the Australian practice of "hot tubbing": In that procedure, also called concurrent evidence, experts are still chosen by...
The Impact of Ideology on Judicial Decision Making
Posted on August 11, 2008A few months ago, Justice Scalia claimed that his socially conservative personal views did not affect his judicial decision making. When he made that claim, I expressed some surprise because it flies in the face of a lot of what...
Interest in Legal Ethics Over Time
Posted on August 06, 2008This chart is more amusing than scientific, but it shows the decline in google searches for the term "legal ethics" over time. (Insert your favorite joke here.) For legal educators, here is another depressing chart. Technically, the charts only show....
The Threatened AALS Boycott
Posted on August 05, 2008According to this article, several law professor groups are threatening to boycott AALS events held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, because the hotel's owner contributed $125,000 to an initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California. On the...
Bleg: bibliography on lawyers and the Global War on Terrorism
Posted on August 05, 2008Readers, can you help me draw up a list of books that are essential reading about the role of lawyers (and legal ethics) in the Global War on Terrorism? We've seen books by Goldsmith, Luban, Yoo, Lichtblau, Mayer, and others....
Judicial Elections and Due Process
Posted on August 02, 2008From Law.com High Court Review Sought on Judicial Recusals Marcia Coyle August 04, 2008 The ethical hornets' nest stirred up by the refusal of an acting West Virginia chief justice to recuse himself from a multimillion-dollar appeal involving his major...
Lawyer religion, conflicts and judicial ethics
Posted on August 01, 2008This seems relevant given Rob's post. A recent Alberta case gave summary judgment dismissing a claim against two lawyers sued for a conflict allegedly arising from the fact that a) the lawyers were Jehovah's Witnesses; b) acted for Watch Tower,...
Two interesting cases: (1) providing docs to federal government isn't waiver, given DOJ policy, and (2) state courts can adjudicate patent malpractice claims
Posted on August 01, 2008Given the harshness of the DOJ's policy about threatening criminal charges if companies don't waive privilege, a California Court of Appeal held that turning over documents to the feds may not act as a waiver of privilege as to those...
Faith-based lawyer advertising
Posted on August 01, 2008The ABA Journal has a story on lawyers referring to their religious faith on their websites: Among the mentions on [the lawyer's] firm site are the numerous mass tort cases that he handles, the multimillion-dollar settlements or verdicts he has...
Interesting Forum Selection Clause Case
Posted on August 01, 2008The Fifth Circuit recently upheld a forum selection clause in a retainer agreement, holding that the court should have granted the law firm's motion to dismiss the suit because it had not been filed in the forum designated by the...
Three Cheers for Peter Keisler
Posted on July 30, 2008Politicized hiring for non-political positions at the DOJ has been in the news of late. Monica Goodling has come in for a good deal of official and unofficial criticism, which is appropriate. But good examples are as useful as examples...
Judicial campaigns
Posted on July 30, 2008The Minnesota State Bar Association has formed a committee to help candidates for judicial office campaign with "dignity" and "integrity."
Bill Henderson on the new bi-modal salary statistics
Posted on July 30, 2008Bill, cross-posting to Legal Profession Blog and Empirical Legal Studies, has the latest stats and implications of the increasingly extreme bi-modal distribution of first year salaries.
Preparing to Live Syndrome
Posted on July 29, 2008The Texas Lawyer has a piece by a "professional coach" and psychotherapist, James Dolan, about lawyers' struggle with what he calls "preparing to live syndrome." (HT: WSJ law blog) Dolan explains: To assume that one doesn't have time to grasp...
The Importance of an Objective Appearances Standard for Judicial Recusal
Posted on June 29, 2008The facts of the Hood case (Texas death penalty), which has been discussed earlier, illustrates the importance of an objective and broadly-phrased appearances standard for judicial recusal. It is not unlikely that the judge in that case would be satisfied...
A Systematic Analysis of Lawyers' Ethics Based on Dignity and Autonomy
Posted on June 29, 2008As Abbe Smith and I say in the third edition (2004) of Understanding Lawyers? Ethics: ?This book presents a systematic position on lawyers? ethics. We argue that lawyers? ethics is rooted in the Bill of Rights and in the autonomy...
Yellow-Light Words and the Teaching of Normative Method
Posted on June 27, 2008I would like to add an acidic voice to our discussion of legal ethics, dignity, and normativity. Words like fair(ness), just(ice), dignity, autonomy, flourishing, and the like, are the yellow lights of legal ethics discourse. When you see them you...
Luban on "When a good prosecutor throws a case"
Posted on June 26, 2008They're having an intereting thread at Balkinization, where David Luban's post praised a prosecutor who "threw" a case. In the comments, Stephen Gillers and I disagreed with Luban.
Yoo testifies before Congress
Posted on June 26, 2008The Balkin site is covering Yoo's testimony before Congress. Yoo's written testimony is here. UPDATE: C-Span has the testimony online, here.
Government checking law students' MySpace pages?
Posted on June 26, 2008The recent report on political bias in hiring of law students at DOJ, mentioned below by Brad, reveals that the federal government, as an employer, was poking around in the law student applicants' MySpace pages. (See, e.g., p. 61) Commentary...
Bill to reverse McNulty Memorandum expected to pass
Posted on June 25, 2008Story here. To some degree, the bill would ban a practice -- prosecutors conditioning leniency upon the defendant's waiver of the attorney client privilege -- that has been on the wane since the KPMG debacle, where many the government's prosecutions....
Should we even be talking about human dignity?
Posted on June 25, 2008Reading the posts by Brad and Alice made me wonder how Luban's vision of lawyering and its relationship to human dignity responds (or would respond) to criticisms by Ruth Macklin and others that dignity is a "useless concept," and that...
More on Silver on Luban
Posted on June 24, 2008Charles Silver?s review of David Luban?s Legal Ethics and Human Dignity needs to be understood as the latest word in a debate which began with the publication of ?What?s Not to like About Being a Lawyer?? a 1999 review essay...
Wendel on Silver on Luban
Posted on June 24, 2008Charles Silver of the University of Texas has posted a review, on Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews, of David Luban's new book, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity. Luban's book has already attracted a great deal of attention, including a review symposium...
Welcome to Our Newest Co-Blogger -- Alice Woolley
Posted on June 24, 2008I'd like to be the first to welcome our newest co-blogger, Prof. Alice Woolley of the University of Calgary. Alice writes on legal ethics from the perspective of the law governing lawyers, and economic, regulatory, and moral theory. She's the...
Leaving the Law
Posted on June 24, 2008Maybe it's a symptom of our therapy-driven society, or maybe it's a symptom of how many unhappy lawyers are paralyzed by inertia, but it seems strange that we need a counseling service designed to coach lawyers on finding happiness by...
Partisanship in DOJ Hiring
Posted on June 24, 2008I've posted previously on allegations of political bias in the Justice Department, and have argued that we have to be careful with slinging around the term "partisanship" too easily, since the President surely has some latitude, as a normative as...
Any legal ethics types in Ayrshire or London?
Posted on June 20, 2008I'm heading there in early July, so if any legal ethics types want to talk ethics, shoot me an email. (Yeah, a busman's holiday, but I enjoy this stuff.)
The affidavits in the Charles Hood case: allegations implicating dozens of lawyers
Posted on June 20, 2008I've been following the Charles Hood case, but hadn't been able to read the source documents. I tracked them down finally. You can find them here at the Texas Defender website. You will want to read the affidavits in the...
Indiana v. Edwards: Faretta mostly survives; states can appoint counsel over objections of criminal defendant with mental illness
Posted on June 19, 2008In Indiana v. Edward, opinion here, the right of a mentally ill criminal defendant to control his own defense was subordinated to the need for a fair trial. If the defendant is competent enough to stand trial (a standard easily...
Truly, truly: "It would be borderline scandalous"
Posted on June 19, 2008The AP ran a story on the expanding number of US law school, even though those schools might be an economic disaster for many of their students. I will now quote not the AP reporter's words but rather the words...
Normative Methods for Lawyers
Posted on June 19, 2008Andy's criticism of the criminal justice system reminds me of a wonderful recent paper by Harvard law prof Joseph Singer, Normative Methods for Lawyers. I'm going to assign portions of the paper to my first-year students because it so clearly...
The Hood Case: Unsurprisingly Disturbing
Posted on June 18, 2008Mr. Hood?s execution did not take place last night, but not because the Texas courts recognized the seriousness of Mr. Hood?s judicial ethics argument. Rather, the prison had the legal authority to execute Mr. Hood only until midnight, and the...
Updates on the Hood Death Penalty Case
Posted on June 17, 2008Following up on Monroe's post below, Mr. Hood was scheduled to be executed this evening. In light of the legal ethics issues that his lawyers raised and about which Monroe so eloquently and persuasively opined, there is currently a temporary...
Urgent - Death Penalty Case
Posted on June 15, 2008The following is the substance of an opinion I am giving in the case of Charles Dean Hood, who is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Tuesday. (Citations appear in the attached copy.) If you are willing to sign...
The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center is seeking an Executive Director
Posted on June 13, 2008They're doing some fascinating stuff there. Here's the job description, with more after the jump. The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center is seeking an Executive Director who will work closely with faculty...
What's wrong with appearance-based recusal?
Posted on June 13, 2008I have not thought about this issue nearly as deeply as Sarah has, but nevertheless I find puzzling the challenge to the appearance-based standard for judicial recusal. Doesn't appearance matter a lot, not just as a proxy for actual bias,...
On the Problem of Appearances
Posted on June 12, 2008What a week to start blogging. I recently wrote this article arguing against the use of appearance-based standards in the recusal context, and now this story from the L.A. Times about Judge Kozinski?s personal website and whether he should recuse...
Colorado Chimes In On Metadata
Posted on June 11, 2008Add Colorado to the growing list of states that have addressed whether lawyers can review an opponent's electronic metadata. The Colorado Bar's ethics opinion, which was issued on May 17, 2008 (thanks to the ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct...
Gillian Hadfield: "Legal Barriers to Innovation: The Growing Economic Cost of Professional Control over Corporate Legal Markets"
Posted on June 11, 2008Here's a new paper from Gillian Hadfield (USC) arguing that regulation of the legal profession has inhibited innovation. The changes occurring in the UK and Australia, which are addressed in Hadfield's article, may eventually reach the US. Abstract: U...
What it takes to be a solo
Posted on June 10, 2008Bill Henderson shares some thoughts. The points he makes are great risk management advice. Especially the part about not taking on some clients.
Another Warm Welcome -- Professor Robert Vischer
Posted on June 10, 2008This is a great day here at Legal Ethics Forum. In addition to Sarah Cravens, we are delighted to welcome St. Thomas School of Law Professor Rob Vischer as a co-blogger . As Rob notes below, he is already a...
Benevolent Despots and Law Firm Life
Posted on June 10, 2008Thanks to Andy for inviting me to join the merry band at LEF. I've been a regular blogger over at Mirror of Justice for several years, so forgive me if I lapse into discussions of Catholic legal theory from time...
E-Discovery Lessons for Lawyers: Qualcomm as a Case Study
Posted on June 10, 2008Here is a useful and quite detailed overview of the Qualcomm case from Law.com. The article reviews what happened and what lessons lawyers can learn about the handling of of e-discovery. There are some particularly useful tidbits for junior lawyers...
Spoliation of evidence issue raised in Guantanamo
Posted on June 10, 2008Story here. The JAG lawyer detailed to represent Omar Khadr, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, says that the Pentagon instructed interrogators to destroy notes that would have provided useful evidence for the defense. (Disclaimer: I've worked with Kuebler on various matters...
Welcome to Our Newest Co-Blogger -- Sarah Cravens
Posted on June 10, 2008Welcome to Professor Sarah Cravens, our newest co-b logger. Sarah is an associate professor of law at the University of Akron School of Law, and she focuses her research on judicial ethics. In particular, Sarah writes on the role of...
Virtues and Meaningful Constraints
Posted on June 10, 2008Paul Horwitz has posted on SSRN an elegant review essay of Judge Posner?s How Judges Think and Jeff Powell?s Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial Decision. Horwitz, who writes that his head is with Posner and his heart is...
Sasha Volokh writes, " . . . legal ethics is to actual ethics as Madison, Wisconsin is to James Madison..."
Posted on June 09, 2008C'mon readers, we can do better than that. Post your entries in the comments and the winner (selected solely in my discretion) will get a copy of this book. We are looking for entries that begin "legal ethics is to...
Some Interesting Tidbits
Posted on June 09, 2008We're Not Going to Take It. No, not The Who's classic song, but the response of clients to the proffer by firms of blanket prospective consents. There's an interesting insight into the norms and customs in this article, here. The...
UC-Berkeley's new summer-school LLM
Posted on June 06, 2008Can you help international students grasp the US approach to law and hone their English language skills in two summer-school segments of three months each? UC-Berkeley will try. Bill Henderson recently suggested that the LLM degree is in danger of...
"Shot from Canons"
Posted on June 04, 2008I have had a number of requests for copies of my Commencement Address, titled ?Shot from Canons: The Ethical Perils of Sardonic Humor,? which was give at the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Clown School in Sarasota, Florida on April...
"Overlawyering" in the transactional setting.
Posted on June 04, 2008The Recorder is reporting that "A venture capitalist fed up with overpriced and overly fastidious lawyers broke the code of silence among money men to vent his frustrations on a blog Sunday." The VC complains of spending money on a...
Recent studies on pro bono practice in the US
Posted on June 02, 2008At the just concluded Law & Society meeting in Montreal, there was an interesting panel on pro bono work. Lots of empirical studies are being done and much (but not all) of the focus is on pro bono by big...
Perception and Ethical Decisionmaking
Posted on June 01, 2008Lawyers sometimes run afoul of the legal ethics rules because they don't see a situation the right way. For example, a lawyer might fail to turn over a discoverable smoking gun document, because the attorney mistakenly convinces herself that the...
Suggestion for Blog Readers
Posted on May 30, 2008I had a wonderful dinner last night at the ABA's National Conference on Professional Responsibility with some readers of this blog. It was nice to chat with some people who stop in to read what we have to say and...
Fortune Magazine on Legal Ethics Experts
Posted on May 30, 2008You may recall a vigorous exchange last year regarding Professor Bill Simon's scathing critique of several legal ethics experts. (Here, here, here, and here.) Fortune Magazine now has a story about the dust up, which you can find here.
Live from the LSA conference
Posted on May 30, 2008Andy Perlman is at the ABA-CPR conference in Boston, and I'm at the LSA conference in Montreal. We've had a number of great panels on the legal profession, which were meta-organized by Bill Henderson of IU. Lots of data and...
Interesting Patent Prosecution Malpractice Case Filed
Posted on May 28, 2008You can read about it here, but essentially the claim is that a Morgan Lewis partner botched a patent application (negligently, apparently), and then intentionally tried to cover up the mistake. The plaintiff claims millions in damages. i've been watching...
A Wrongful Incarceration/Execution Exception to the Duty of Confidentiality
Posted on May 28, 2008The Northwestern Law Review is publishing this piece by John Marshall's Colin Miller on whether the Model Rules should have a wrongful incarceration/execution exception to the duty of confidentiality. Professor Miller draws on the Alton Logan case, which we have...
Another Metadata-related Gaffe
Posted on May 28, 2008Blacking out text in a word file doesn't erase it. But a plaintiff's firm suing GE in a $500m class action didn't realize that... and put a whole slew of GE confidential information in the public domain as a result....
AG Mukasey tells BC law grads not to shy away from tough calls (and uses the government lawyers dealing with national security as the context)
Posted on May 27, 2008Story here. Text of speech below the fold. Mukasey makes the distinction between legal advice and policy advice, and suggests that a lawyer sometimes permits clients to do things that the lawyer wishes the client wouldn't do.
An Interesting Wrinkle for Outsourcing
Posted on May 24, 2008There has been a lot of recent talk about the outsourcing of legal work, especially to India. I have heard a variety of concerns about the trend, but one that I had not considered is that the United States government...
A Government Lawyer Ethics Puzzle
Posted on May 22, 2008Martha Coakley was once a district attorney in Massachusetts, and her office was inside a state courthouse. That courthouse apparently had health and safety issues, so Coakley brought a lawsuit against the Commonwealth to force the government to take remedial...
Dinner at the ABA Conference
Posted on May 19, 2008Because last year's ABA Conference/blog reception went so well, I thought it would be fun to get together again next week at the Conference in Boston. I propose meeting for dinner on Thursday, May 29 at 6:30, which is right...
Our New Look
Posted on May 19, 2008Can you tell that we're busy grading? I'd rather play around with the colors on the blog than grade my exams. It's cheaper than re-painting my house and more fun than reorganizing my sock drawer.
For Your Summer Reading List
Posted on May 16, 2008In addition to Steve Lubet's new book, which David McGowan referenced below, you should also take a look at the new AALS PR newsletter, which The Legal Profession blog has posted on its site. The newsletter highlights recent scholarship and...
Article about Terry Stewart, who litigated the same sex marriage cases in California
Posted on May 15, 2008In light of the huge news from California -- declaring unconsitutional the ban on same sex marriage -- you might want to read this great profile of Terry Stewart, who litigated the marriage cases.
Lubet on Honesty
Posted on May 12, 2008Steve Lubet is always worth reading, so I am looking forward to reading his new book The Importance of Being Honest. I'll post a few comments when I have. DM
Bombs Don't Kill People, Lawyers For Bombers Kill People
Posted on May 09, 2008Or so, it seems, the Wall Street Journal opines today. Apparently Abdullah Salih Al Ajmi, who blew himself up in order to murder others, had been detained at Guantanamo Bay. A Kuwaiti, Al Ajmi had been represented by Shearman &...
Immigration Court Ethics
Posted on May 08, 2008Judge Posner recently issued a scathing critique of the immigration court system. He criticized the competence of immigration judges and lamented the dearth of qualified lawyers to handle immigration matters. For more on these issues, you might want to take...
David Luban's Testimony on the "Torture Memos"
Posted on May 07, 2008Professor David Luban testified yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee. You can find his testimony here.
Wrongful Termination and Confidentiality
Posted on May 05, 2008The San Diego County Bar Association Legal Ethics Committee has posted opinion 2008-01, which discusses what a terminated in-house lawyer may disclose in connection with a wrongful termination claim against a former employer.
New York Times Article on Confidentiality Exceptions
Posted on May 05, 2008Adam Liptak of the Times has a nice overview of the issues that we have discussed here, here, and here.
Unethical Obedience By Subordinate Attorneys: Lessons from Social Psychology
Posted on May 05, 2008This article, which I just posted on SSRN, describes in more detail some of the ideas contained in this op-ed. Here's the abstract: This Article explores the lessons that we can learn from social psychology regarding a lawyer's willingness to...
John Yoo's Torture Memos: Lessons for All of Us
Posted on May 02, 2008I just published an op-ed in the National Law Journal, where I suggest that John Yoo may have written his torture memos for some of the same reasons that people applied 450 volt electric shocks to a bound older man...
Law Prof Sues Students for Defamation
Posted on May 02, 2008An ABA article is here. The NYT's coverage, here. I looked for the complaint, but couldn't find it on the Arkansas judiciary site.
Interesting Twist on File Ownership Issue
Posted on May 02, 2008Timothy McVeigh's attorney donated his file to the Univerity of Texas at Austin. The file was appraised at $300,000 and he sought a tax deduction. The IRS disallowed it because he didn't own the file. Jones v. Comm'r of Internal...
Sample Legal Ethics Expert Retainer Letter
Posted on May 01, 2008A legal ethics listserv recently had some back and forth about retainer letters for legal ethics experts and what should be in them. During last year's National Conference on Professional Responsibility, there was a great panel on legal ethics experts...
"I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases."
Posted on April 29, 2008That's a quote from Justice Scalia. I'm sure that Justice Scalia believe that his political ideology doesn't affect his decision making, but is this cabining of ideology possible to the extent that he suggests? Much ink has been spilled on...
Character and Fitness Testing for Law School Applicants
Posted on April 28, 2008I frequently get bar admission questions around this time of year. A common one is whether a student?s prior brush with the law will impact her application to the bar. Obviously, bar applicants have to report prior convictions and the...
Galanter and Henderson's "The Elastic Tournament: The Second Transformation of the Big Law Firm"
Posted on April 22, 2008This article, which will be appearing soon in the Stanford Law Review, sounds fascinating. And given who the authors are, it's undoubtedly a good one. Here's the abstract: In 1991, Galanter and Palay published 'Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of...
New Trial for Alton Logan
Posted on April 21, 2008For followers of the Alton Logan story (here and here), a judge has ordered that Mr. Logan receive a new trial.
The Ongoing Push for Screening
Posted on April 20, 2008Screening is a fraud on the public and makes a monkey of the idea that law is a profession and that lawyers are their clients? fiduciaries. In order to understand the problems raised by screening, consider a typical case. Attorney...
Class rank and bar passage: some data is released
Posted on April 19, 2008There was interesting news this week at Berkeley. (Follow that link to the Nuts & Boalts website.) In response to a low bar passage rate for the last bar exam, Dean Edley disclosed to 3Ls the bar passage rates by...
Bill Henderson & Andrew Morriss put the US News & World rankings in the right context, then provide hard data and common sense
Posted on April 16, 2008In the past few years, it's been exciting to see the recent empirical work being done on the profession, and it's not surprising that once again Bill Henderson and Andrew Morriss bring us common sense and hard data -- this...
Metadata Opinion from the New York County Bar
Posted on April 16, 2008Add this opinion to the growing list of bar opinions on whether a lawyer can look at the metadata contained in an adversary's electronic documents. In the non-litigation context, the New York County Bar says that the answer should be...
"Federal Ethics Law" Grows
Posted on April 14, 2008Long ago in Texas, the federal courts applied the Texas Rules in deciding disqualification motions; then, two disqualification motions were filed in Texas federal courts which resulted in two opinions from the Fifth Circuit holding that "federal law" -- not...
Dear Rules Revision Commission: Conflict Waivers
Posted on April 14, 2008Richard Zitrin's comment on proposed CA Rule 1.7 prompts me to float an idea for revising the rule to adopt more of a presumptive safe harbor approach. It entails spelling out in some detail what has to be disclosed, in...
Fire John Yoo?
Posted on April 11, 2008In response to an on-line petition demanding that UC-Berkeley fire John Yoo from his position as a tenured professor of law, Brian Leiter posted a spirited defense of the value of tenure. Marty Lederman followed up by posting a memo...
Dear Rules Revision Commission: 1.13
Posted on April 09, 2008The new batch of proposed CA rules includes a revised rule 1.13. Three Two quick comments. 1. The rule departs from the MR by incorporating the current 3-100/6068(e) limits on the ability of counsel to disclose client information. That is...
California county government may hire civil action contingency lawyers
Posted on April 09, 2008It's not necessarily a conflict of interest, as the trial court had held below. Decision here. (Santa Clara County v. Superior Court) Story, behind reg wall, here, with key graf: "Private counsel serving in such a subordinate role," Sixth District...
A proposed revision to proposed CA rule 1.7
Posted on April 07, 2008As you may have heard, California is revising its disciplinary rules. Our rules revision commission issued a batch of proposed rules recently, and ethics mavens (including me) are busily writing comments on the proposal. The proposed rule 1.7 has been...
Brief in Duke lacrosse lawsuit cites our blog
Posted on April 07, 2008This is kind of cool: a brief in the new Duke lacrosse lawsuit cites Monroe Freedman's post on this blog. (See fn. 1) In the suit, the defendants have moved to prevent a blog from making extra-judicial statements that may...
Texas Approves Use of Insurance Company Captive Law Firms
Posted on April 05, 2008It's been a major battle that the UPL committee had been winning, as this article notes, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed that committee's policy and authorized the use of captive firms to represent insureds. The opinion, Unauthorized Practice of...
The Lawyer World is Almost Flat
Posted on April 04, 2008Here's a very informative and useful article from Time Magazine about the outsourcing of legal work to India. (Hat tip to the ABA e-Journal.) I firmly believe that outsourcing is going to be a big issue in the coming years...
Inadvertent Disclosure at U.S. News
Posted on April 03, 2008I noted last week that, in its online law school rankings, U.S. News had listed the third and fourth tier schools in rank order rather than in alphabetical order, as they always had done in the past. Suspecting that U.S....
Roundup of big claims against big corporate firms
Posted on April 02, 2008Amanda Bronstad of the National Law Journal writes that "[l]aw firms are having mixed success in dismissing a growing number of high-dollar malpractice and fraud claims brought over failed corporate deals." She's got the details in the article. Trustess (standing...
Virginia Seeking Comments on Patent Agent-Lawyer Partnerships
Posted on April 02, 2008Virginia is seeking public comment on what is in my specialty a common and troublesome question: can a lawyer and a patent agent form a partnership, and so share fees, without violating whatever ethical rules -- those of the Patent...
Now available: more OLC "torture memos" written by John Yoo
Posted on April 01, 2008Via the Balkinization site (by way of Volokh). Memos here and here. These will be closely analyzed in the next few days and weeks. Balkinization suggests that the procedural history of the memos needs explanation. More to follow, no doubt....
Patent Malpractice Cases - Some Thoughts
Posted on April 01, 2008One thing I focus on is ethical issues in patent practice (prosecution and litigation), and to a lesser extent, issues that arise in trademark practice. I've been doing it for about 20 years (yes, that makes me feel old), and...
Odd and Ends about Previous Posts (as reported by the WSJ Law Blog)
Posted on March 30, 2008Regarding Ben Kuehne, the Miami criminal defense lawyer who was criminally charged for rendering an ethics opinion approving of Roy Black's receipt of legal fees from an alleged drug kingpin: we've heard the extraordinary rumor -- we repeat "rumor" --...
More on US News
Posted on March 29, 2008I tried to post this as a comment, but we don't allow html, so this is a follow on to Andy's post, below. Andy, when I view the "below 101" numbers, there's no "score" and they seem to be alphabetical....
Full U.S. News Law School Rankings Now Posted
Posted on March 28, 2008You don't have to rely on fuzzy images of early-released copies any longer. The 2009 rankings are now up on the U.S. News web site. Of note this year is that third and fourth tier schools appear to be listed...
The Misdirected Message and the Search for Truth
Posted on March 28, 2008The following illustrates how the misdirected fax or email can aid in the search for truth -- an issue that is consistently ignored or minimized in discussions supporting a requirement that lawyers ignore such messages, send them back, etc. Misdirected...
March Madness! (think USN&WR rankings, not basketball)
Posted on March 26, 2008Well, the rankings are [probably] out. In a perfect world, law schools would provide data about their students' debt loads, their entering credentials, their bar passage rates by entering credentials and by class rank, their hiring statistics (including starting salary)...
Harvard Law Review note on "Government Counsel and their Obligations"
Posted on March 25, 2008Pdf here. (nod to Concurring Opinions)
Ethical Infrastructures in Australian Firms
Posted on March 25, 2008Here's an article about building a more formal ethics infrastructure in Australian firms. The article acknowledges the help of, among others, Elizabeth Chambliss, Susan Fortney, and Kimberly Kirkland, who have all written good pieces about ethics and structural issues in...
Posts about non-lawyers in court
Posted on March 25, 2008The first one, viaMike Frisch at Legal Profession Blog, says that "the Montana Supreme Court has adopted rules that permit non-lawyers to act as counsel before the Montana Water Court." The second, via Erica Hashimoto of Concurring Opinions, discusses tomorrow's...
March Madness! (think USN&WR rankings, not basketball)
Posted on March 25, 2008Well, the rankings are out. In a perfect world, law schools would provide data about their students' debt loads, their entering credentials, their bar passage rates by entering credentials and by class rank, their hiring statistics (including starting salary) by...
Lawyer's demand letter as criminal extortion?
Posted on March 24, 2008Sometimes, it's extortion. News from Simple Justice.
Wearing a Wireless Microphone to Court
Posted on March 24, 2008That's what a Massachusetts lawyer did during a murder trial in order to take part in a television documentary. The client was convicted and appealed on the grounds that the lawyer's microphone-wearing resulted in ineffective assistance of counsel. (Thanks to...
Galanter and Henderson on "The Elastic Tournament of Lawyers"
Posted on March 18, 2008The SSRN paper is here. Because it follows up on the seminal Galanter/Palay book, this new article is a must read for people interested in private firm pratice in the US.
Rob Vischer on Moral Engagement Without the "Moral Law"
Posted on March 18, 2008Professor Rob Vischer has a new article with the above title, which can be found here. I haven't read the article yet, but it appears to tackle some important, foundational questions about role differentiated morality and moral dialogue. Here's the...
What hath Nifong wrought?
Posted on March 18, 2008The Recorder is carrying the story of a spate of recent California State Bar disciplinary actions against prosecutors. It's often said that discipline is rarely sought against prosecutors, and so people are naturally asking if this is all a reaction....
Hricik Asks: Got Claims?
Posted on March 17, 2008All, I'm in the final stages of preparing the first of two volumes on ethical issues in patent practice: the first is on patent prosecution (co-authored with Drinker Biddle partner Mercedes Meyers, and the second, on litigation, by lil' ol'...
Peter Margulies on the Office of Legal Counsel
Posted on March 17, 2008OLC lawyers have found themselves at the center of a lot of recent commentary. (See, for example, Brad Wendel's excellent post and the links contained in it here.) Professor Peter Margulies has a new article out that tackles some of...
The Murky Law on Collecting Legal Fees From Criminal Defendants
Posted on March 17, 2008Here is more on the story involving Ben Kuehne, a highly regarded lawyer in Florida who has been indicted for money laundering in connection with the advice that he gave to well-known criminal defense attorney Roy Black. Black wanted to...
Nominations Sought for PR Section Executive Committee Members
Posted on March 17, 2008Here is an annoucement from Professor Peter Joy regarding executive committee nominations for the Professional Responsibility Section of the AALS: Nominations are now open to fill six new vacancies on the Professional Responsibility Section Executive Committee...
Dennis Ventry on "Cooperative Tax Regulation"
Posted on March 17, 2008Dennis J. Ventry Jr., of American University, has published "Cooperative Tax Regulation" at SSRN. Here's an abstract. The last thirty years have witnessed unprecedented tax avoidance. Corporate tax shelters have cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars in lost...
Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in Enron trials; was Skilling nifonged?
Posted on March 15, 2008Larry Ribstein has the story. So does Tom Kirkendall. The allegation is that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence -- that they "pulled a Nifong." The defense brief is here. UPDATE: Ellen Podgar has thoughts, here. WR Chambers asks if we'll post....
Interesting Hot Potato Case out of Utah
Posted on March 13, 2008In Flying J Inc v. TA Operating Corp., 2008 WL 648545 (D. Utah March 10, 2008), the court refused to disqualify Gibson Dunn. It's a fascinating case, where Gibson Dunn tried to get a consent to avoid the "we may...
"Cutting to the Core of America's Justice System"
Posted on March 10, 2008That's what 60 Minutes claims it's doing with its coverage of Alton Logan's case. But it's hard to see how the story accomplishes that goal; the reporting of Logan's seemingly wrongful conviction focuses almost exclusively on two criminal defense lawyers...
Class Counsel and Stolen Documents
Posted on March 09, 2008My post on the WSJ's story on Mr. Torkelson's inflated billings generated some critical responses. (I clarify in comment two below that my criticism is directed to the naming of Messrs Park and Coughlin; I do not question Torkelson's general...
Revealing Confidential Information to Free an Innoncent Man
Posted on March 09, 2008Legal ethics professors like to ask students whether a lawyer should be allowed to disclose a client's confidential information in order prevent the wrongful execution or incarceration of another person. The issue, it turns out, is not simply a good....
Qualcomm Sanctions Order Vacated: Privilege Waiver Found
Posted on March 06, 2008Here is Judge Brewster's order:Download QCPrivWaiverOrder.pdf. I agree with his reasoning. Stay tuned. DM
The WSJ and Mr. Torkelson
Posted on March 06, 2008The WSJ reports that John Torkelson, formerly a plaintiff-side expert witness in securities litigation, has submitted a statement (in connection with a plea deal) admitting to submitting to district courts for reimbursement false statements of his billings on cases...
Website as extrajudicial statement violation?
Posted on March 05, 2008There's been news coverage of the recent suit by Duke lacrosse players against Duke administrators. Someone who's allegdly associated with the plantiffs' lawyers set up the site Dukelawsuit.com and, more pertinent to our site, the defendants have now filed a...
Lawyer and client hammered for F-bombs at depo
Posted on March 05, 2008I wonder if there's video tape of the depo. We usually imagine that the lawyer is the one out of line. Sometimes it's the client. Two of the best known Youtube deposition clips feature foul-mouthed deponents. In one, the lawyer...
Internal Investigation of Incompetent Advising at OLC
Posted on February 29, 2008There are currently two legal proceedings pending which may have the effect of focusing official -- as opposed to academic and media -- attention on the legal advice given by OLC lawyers on the permissibility of certain "enhanced interrogation techniques...
The Meaning of "Material" in MR 3.3
Posted on February 28, 2008MR 3.3(a)(3) forbids a lawyer to knowingly offer "evidence" that the lawyer knows to be false. It also requires a lawyer to take remedial measures if the lawyer has unwittingly offered "material evidence" that the lawyer comes to know is...
Col. Morris Davis to testify for Gitmo detainee?
Posted on February 27, 2008You may recall Col. Morris Davis from an earlier dust-up. Davis was the prosecutor who accused a military defense lawyer (Michael Mori) of acting unethically by disparaging the Gitmo military tribunals during a press tour through Australia. Davis was vilified...
Do 2 massive sanctions make a trend?
Posted on February 27, 2008A federal court has sanctioned a party $10 million for the trial conduct of its lawyers. The ruling follows a similar fine dished out recently for basically the same conduct: pushing a trial theory at odds with the claims construction.
Political Affiliations and Law School Pedagogy
Posted on February 26, 2008Thanks to Alan Childress at the Legal Profession Blog for the tip on this remarkable site at the Huffington Post, where you can learn who donates to political candidates, how much they donate, where the donors live, where the donors...
Conflict for Roger Clemens's lawyer?
Posted on February 26, 2008WSJ law blog has the details. If you're interested in who has standing to assert that a lawyer has a disqualifying conflict of interest, visit this page from Freivogel on Conflicts.
Justice Department opens another ethics probe of OLC memos
Posted on February 25, 2008According to the Washington Post (nod to Volokh): An internal watchdog office at the Justice Department is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation...
Update on New Jersey "Super Lawyers" Case
Posted on February 25, 2008There's a brief piece here updating on the New Jersey litigation over whether it is ethical for a lawyer to use their designation "super lawyer." I've seen lawyers tout their "selection" as indicating, also, that it means they are one...
Legal Ethics and "Pitching"
Posted on February 21, 2008Here are three stories that relate to legal ethics and "pitching." The first concerns the legal ethics issues associated with the representation of Roger Clemens and his lawyer's use of the press. The second involves a potential conflict of interest....
Yet Another Misdirected Email to a Reporter
Posted on February 21, 2008This time, the mistake was made by a very respected litigator at Skadden. This comes on the heals of a similar mistake by a lawyer at Pepper Hamilton. The ABA e-Journal, which covered both stories, offers a very sensible suggestion:...
An Introduction to the Legal Ethics Issues Associated with Metadata
Posted on February 16, 2008Here's a nice overview from the National Law Journal. (Self-serving blog post alert: Co-blogger David Hricik and I are both quoted in the article.)
Scalia on Torture of Suspects
Posted on February 15, 2008According to the NYT, Scalia said on BBC Radio that it would be ?extraordinary? to understand the Eighth Amendment to mean that ?so-called? torture could not be used in the face of an imminent threat. He said that the Amendment...
Georgia Sugar Explosion Draws Legal Vultures
Posted on February 15, 2008There's a predictable story here about the number of lawyers soliciting business from those injured or surviving those killed in the tragic sugar refinery explosion we had here in Savannah. I think, personally, that if you're going to have these...
New article on metadata
Posted on February 13, 2008David Hricik and Chase Scott have published a thorough piece on where most common software creates metadata, available here in the February 2008 Georgia Bar Journal. The next issue will have a thorough piece on the split about whether it's...
White Collar Crime Prof Blog on Dickie Scruggs and KPMG
Posted on February 13, 2008The White Collar Crime Prof blog is doing a great job covering two stories I wish we had more time to cover here: the KPMG case and the Dickie Scruggs matter.
More on that Misdirected Email
Posted on February 13, 2008Following up on the misdirected email story, here is what the New York Times reporter had to say about it. (Thanks to my colleague, Marc Greenbaum, for the tip.)
Newspaper series on dependency court
Posted on February 12, 2008The San Jose Mercury News is running a powerful series of articles on dependency court in Santa Clara County. You could use the series as a supplement text -- if not the main text -- in a PR or family...
Lawyers' Liability Down Under: Stephen Warne's Blog
Posted on February 12, 2008Stephen Warne blogs about the legal profession in Australia, where they are trying some innovations (e.g., public ownership of law firms) that may someday find their way to the US.
Client Perjury - Again, and Still
Posted on February 12, 2008The current issue of the GJLE has the first law review article I have written on the perjury trilemma since the 1966 one in the Mich. L. Rev. I'd be interested in comments. Here is the TOC. I. The Beginning...
Why Maryland's State Bar Doesn't Give Ethics Opinions for Free
Posted on February 11, 2008In the comments to an earlier post, Paul Raschke, the chair of Maryland's ethics committee, explains the history behind their decision to charge for access to their ethics opinions.
Lerach to Lecture on Legal Ethics at Pittsburgh?
Posted on February 11, 2008Given how much press the Lynne Stewart story got, this is sure to get some attention as well. Unlike Stewart, who gave a single lecture at an ethics conference, William Lerach could be more heavily involved in teaching the basic...
Feeling Sorry for Big Firms
Posted on February 10, 2008John kindly invited me to share a panel with him at the APRL meeting last Friday. The topic was terms sophisticated clients now demand of sophisticated firms. I played my role of economic provocateur, and the APRL members were as...
The Pepper-Luban-Kaufman debate over lawyers and morality
Posted on February 10, 2008I'm glad to post some classic articles that are hard to find. In preparation for an Inn of Court presentation, I corresponded with Professors Stephen Pepper and David Luban, who kindly granted permission to post their classic dialogue about whether...
Ben Kuehne indicted: gave legal advice about accepting legal fees
Posted on February 09, 2008Story here, and here. Kuehne allegedly advised criminal defense attorney Roy Black about the legality of accepting certain cash for the defense of a drug kingpin. Kuehne was presumably acting in the counselor/advisor capacity when he offered the opinion, and...
The Happy Legal Ethicist
Posted on February 08, 2008Or so says this article from the National Law Journal.
A Remarkable Story About an Inadvertent Disclosure, a Lawyer, and a Journalist
Posted on February 06, 2008Sound like the start of a really bad joke? Unfortunately, it's not. Here's the story. Eli Lilly was recently in confidential talks with the federal government regarding the marketing of the company's schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa. One of Lilly's lawyers apparently...
Update on North Carolina Lawyer Facing Discipline
Posted on February 05, 2008You may recall this story about a North Carolina lawyer who disclosed confidential information from a deceased former client, because it showed that a man who was serving time for murder was actually innocent. That attorney had been facing discipline,...
Interesting Piece on "Lessons" from Qualcomm
Posted on February 05, 2008There's a good piece here on the lessons that lawyers can learn from Qualcomm. I always tell students that "character is what you are in the dark" (hat tip to Buckaroo Bonzai). This article does a nice job of parsing...
EU Considering Case on In-House Counsel Privilege
Posted on February 04, 2008Should communications with in-house counsel never be privileged, since the lawyer is not independent of the client? If the premise sounds flawed, then you're with me, but you should read about the fight going on in Europe right now. A...
The Trend on Metadata?
Posted on February 04, 2008I've been giving some additional thought to the ethics issues associated with metadata, both because of the recently issued opinions in Arizona and Pennsylvania and because I've recently given several lectures on the problem. In my view, I think it's...
ABA urges tougher accreditation standards (at the cost of diversity?)
Posted on February 03, 2008Story here, with nods to Volokh (where the comments are flying fast and hot) and Paul Caron. One of the commentors at Paul Caron's site has linked to this data, which shows low bar passage rates and how far those...
Issue Spot Exam Question in legal ethics
Posted on February 02, 2008Here's the issue spotter from my Fall 2007 course at UC-Berkeley. ***************** You?re a third year associate at Stacy Brent & Associates. The sole partner, Stacy Brent, left you this voicemail: ?I?m in trial representing a British citizen, Nehal Mehta,...
NLJ on Qualcomm Opinions
Posted on February 01, 2008There's a pretty interesting piece here on this issue and the "tremors it is creating, which we blogged about below.
Ads?
Posted on January 30, 2008You may notice our new look over on the right side -- advertisements. (Sorry, Florida Bar.) In the blogosphere, even in the academic blogosphere, many (most?) blogs have ads, so our feeling is that it doesn't take away from the...
Lynne Stewart's appeal
Posted on January 30, 2008Via Althouse, here's news of the appellate argument in Lynne Stewart's case. As I understand it, there is a legitimate issue of about the required intent under the statute, but if any of the three appellate judges opines that what...
More on Metadata
Posted on January 30, 2008At this rate, we're going to have quite a few ethics opinions on metadata over the next couple of years. Here is what Arizona has to say on the topic. In essence, the Arizona State Bar Association has concluded that...
Update on Unbundling in New Jersey
Posted on January 29, 2008Last 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...
Symposium on Ethics and Evidence
Posted on January 28, 2008Some of you may have recently received a copy of the Fordham Law Review, which has a nice collection of articles related to evidence and ethics. In case you missed it, here's information about the symposium from the Evidence Law...
Pennsylvania Issues Opinion on Metadata Mining
Posted on January 23, 2008Hmmm... as noted elsewhere here, the question of whether it is ethical to look for metadata in a document e-mailed among opposing counsel has split the bar associations. Pennsylvania recently issued opinion 2007-500 (not available on line, but at 30....
Professional Protectionism from East to West
Posted on January 23, 2008Take a look at this story out of Massachusetts. Some doctor groups there fought (unsuccessfully) to keep pharmacies from opening nurse-staffed in-store medical clinics, arguing that such clinics would jeopardize patient safety. And now compare that story to this one...
Legal Ethics in the Times
Posted on January 22, 2008The always superb Adam Liptak covers two recent legal ethics stories in the New York Times. First, there is this story from today's Times on whether the zealous advocacy norm should be relaxed in the mass tort context. And then...
Florida Bar sued over ads
Posted on January 22, 2008The Florida state bar's advertising restrictions have been challenged in court on first amendment grounds. (hat tip to Legal Profession Blog) I'd like to see sanity prevail, but if the Florida bar starts obeying the constitution we'd lose some "news....
Sheller v. Superior Court:
Posted on January 21, 2008A new California Court of Appeal case reversed sanctions against a Texas lawyer, but suggested that the lawyer's pro hac admission could be revoked. Full opinion here. (Scroll down to January 17, 2008; Sheller v. Superior Court) Key graf here:...
Interdisciplinary studies in non-elite schools
Posted on January 21, 2008Brian Tamanaha kicked off the debate. My views are close to Larry Ribstein's. Self-serving regulation keeps law schools in a straitjacket, to the detriment of students and society and to the benefit of professors and existing lawyers. Let's re-introduce the...
Stunning Ethics Case in Virginia
Posted on January 19, 2008The New York Times has the story. Basically, a lawyer represented one of two men in the late 1990's who was accused of killing another man during a robbery. A critical issue in the case was who pulled the trigger,...
Who Should Regulate Lawyers?
Posted on January 18, 2008Here's a nice article from the National Law Journal, which describes the battle in some states between the legislature and the judiciary regarding who should regulate lawyers. These state skirmishes mirror recent struggles between the ABA and the federal government...
Stoneridge: win for the defense; "scheme liability' rejected
Posted on January 15, 2008Opinion here. "Scheme liability" is rejected. I don't have time to comment but I imagine the blawgosphere will be discussing it. A big win for defendants -- and for law firms that represent public companies.
David Luban on Padilla v. Yoo
Posted on January 13, 2008The always-worth-reading David Luban posts his thoughts about Padilla v. Yoo over at Balinization. I can't respond right away, but can offer a quick couple of thoughts. 1. Luban emphasizes Yoo's participation not merely in the role of lawyer within...
Want to help write my Inn of Court presentation?
Posted on January 12, 2008I'm drafting a presentation for my Inn of Court, to be delivered next month. We have judges (appellate and trial; state and federal), practitioners (mostly litigators) and students (Santa Clara, Lincoln, Stanford). The idea is to present a vignette that...
More Fun From Florida
Posted on January 10, 2008Oh Florida Bar, you make blogging so much fun. Here's yet another story from the Sunshine State. This time, the Bar is trying to stop a lawyer from using the slogan "Don't settle for less than you deserve," even though...
Will Qualcomm Do What Fisons Didn't?
Posted on January 09, 2008There's no need to add to David's excellent posts on Qualcomm (below), but I will offer one prediction: Qualcomm will do what Fisons didn't. There was some discussion about whether Fisons would usher in a new era of "good behavior"...
Lessons from Qualcomm
Posted on January 09, 2008The Qualcomm order offers useful lessons for anyone involved in big-case litigation. Subject to the important qualification that this list might be different if we knew the privileged information we do not know, here are my candidates: 1. Division of...
The Qualcomm Order
Posted on January 09, 2008Judge Major wrote a very impressive 48-page opinion sanctioning six attorneys and Qualcomm itself for what the court saw as massive discovery misconduct. It is not a surprise to anyone attending the hearing. I think the court essentially had to...
Qualcomm Sanctions Order
Posted on January 08, 2008Here it is: Download QualcommSanctionsMotion.pdf. I have to run to class. I'll comment later. DM
Overheard During a Recent Law Dean Search
Posted on January 08, 2008Dean Search Committee Chair: We believe that the Committee has brought to you three outstanding decanal candidates. The first, Hillary Clintlock, is a Yale Law grad. She started her career at a law firm and then spent a considerable amount...
Jose Padilla and his mother sue John Yoo (former OLC lawyer)
Posted on January 04, 2008I [now have read] the complaint, [and the blogosphere has been] hopping on news that Jose Padilla and his mother have sued John Yoo ( Orin Kerr and many others at Volokh and Duncan Hollis at Opinio Juris). The graveman...
Shark Tank in a Lawyer's Office
Posted on January 03, 2008Now that's creative marketing. But do you have any doubt that, if this happened in Florida, the lawyer would be disciplined?
Civility and All That
Posted on January 02, 2008A post on the LPB, referring to this Michigan disciplinary ruling, brought the topic of civility to mind. Since I began paying attention to the legal business in 1984,a few themes have remained constant in talk about the state of...
My Analysis of the "Puzzle"
Posted on January 01, 2008Following up on my ethics puzzle below, I thought I?d say a few more words about why I think this situation is interesting and, in some ways, puzzling. I agree with the commenters who say that the "right" answer is...
An Ethics/Moral Puzzle for the New Year
Posted on December 30, 2007Someone I know hired a landscaper to build a stone patio in his backyard. The landscaper completed the job, and the person I know never heard a peep. No bill. Nothing. After four months or so, it became increasingly apparent...
Reporting a corporate investigation to a Board with adverse interests can destroy the privilege.
Posted on December 27, 2007In an article titled, "Delaware Ruling May Let Plaintiffs Pierce Backdating Probes," American Lawyer Media covers an important case about loss of attorney client privilege. The key graf: The Delaware court ruled Nov. 30 that the special committee investigating backdating...
Last Plea for Votes
Posted on December 21, 2007We previously asked for votes in the ABA's Legal Ethics Blawg category, which matters to about five people. Ok, maybe four. In any event, we are now losing ground to the Legal Profession Blog in our attempt to win the...
Mayer Brown partner criminally charged in Refco fallout
Posted on December 18, 2007News story here (w/a nod to ABA's Daily News) SEC press release here. Indictment here. As you may recall, after Refco went belly-up, Weil Gotshal filed a massive RICO action against Mayer Brown, alleging that the firm had participated in...
Two Career Couples and Conflicts of Interest: FTC Commissioner Declines to Recuse Herself
Posted on December 15, 2007Here's an increasingly common problem: a two-career couple raises conflict of interest questions. The FTC Commission Chair, Deborah Platt Majoras, has denied requests to recuse herself from ruling on the proposed merger of Google and Double-click. Majoras's statement is here...
Top Ten Legal Ethics Stories of 2007 (Updated)
Posted on December 14, 2007UPDATE: The California Supreme Court's decision in Rico v. Mitsubishi has moved onto the list, meaning that the Top Ten is now an even dozen -- and we could get to a baker's dozen by year's end. The requirement of...
I was named ABA's "2007 Lawyer of the Year" (runner up)
Posted on December 13, 2007I am deeply honored about being named by the ABA as a "2007 (Runner-up) Lawyer of the Year." (Take a grain of salt and then scroll down to the part about the "Lawyer-Blogger.") I will delete any comments pointing out...
Members of Congress link accreditation and decline in African-American enrollment in law school
Posted on December 13, 2007The story is, unfortunately, only for subscribers. But here's the first sentence: "Members of Congress are pushing for a detailed study of the accreditation process for the nation's law schools, claiming it may be partly to blame for a decline...
Rico v. Mitsubishi: stop reading and notify; DQ affirmed
Posted on December 13, 2007The California Supremes have issued their opinion in Rico v. Mitsubishi, Here we consider what action is required of an attorney who received privileged documents through inadvertence and whether the remedy of disqualification is appropriate. We conclude that under the...
Rico v. Mitsubishi to be decided tomorrow (inadvertent disclosure)
Posted on December 12, 2007As many of you know, the California Supreme Court has been sitting on two inadvertent disclosure cases for a long, long time. One of them, Rico v. Mitsubishi, will be released tomorrow. In that case, a lawyer came into possession...
Disturbing holding: lawyer must testify against former client
Posted on December 11, 2007Details over at Legal Profession Blog. I understand the rationale, which applies the crime-fraud exception, but it's always jarring to hear of a criminal defense lawyer being a key witness against a former client.
Berkeley's Dean Edley is inaugural holder of legal ethics chair
Posted on December 11, 2007From UC-Berkeley: "Dean Christopher Edley Jr. has been named the inaugural holder of the Honorable William H. Orrick Jr. Distinguished Chair in Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession." I remember appearing before Judge Orrick. I can only paraphrase what he...
Lawyers cleared destruction of tapes?
Posted on December 11, 2007That's what the NYT's anonymous source says. For some time now, I've expected that fewer and fewer lawyers will advise clients that they can discard information, even when it seems lawful to do so. First, you never know what obscure...
High Profile Fee Dispute Resolved
Posted on December 07, 2007You may recall Professor Burt Neuborne's controversial fee request in the Swiss Bank/Holocaust litigation last year. The presiding federal judge has finally ruled on the issue, awarding Professor Neuborne $3.1 million in fees. The story is here.
Our Readers Have Good Taste
Posted on December 03, 2007According to the ABA Journal, you're reading one of the top 100 law-related blogs in the country. That fact and fifty cents will get us a copy of the Boston Globe, but I suppose there are worse distinctions. Update: If...
Have we passed "peak spam"?
Posted on November 30, 2007Email haunts today's lawyer, and news that we may have passed peak spam is welcome news.
Related Law Articles
Pre-paid Leagal Services
What are Prepaid Legal Benefit Plans
Legal Forms
Business and Commercial Legal Forms
Best Law Movies
Greatest Legal Movies selected by ABA Journal
Law & Order Depicts Police Procedures and Criminal Justice
Accuracy of Criminal Justice Depiction on Television
Related Law Questions
Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
How do you recover money from a stop payment placed on a personal check given to you?
you can always take them to small claims court and sure them for 3 times the amo...
The company I worked for forced me to quit instead of dealing with someone harassing me, what can I do?
Look up CONSTRUCTIVE DISCHARGE...................this looks like what happened t...
#1 Online Legal Resource
On 08-28 at 21:13PM
Ten months later, Fed must reveal names of emergency lending recipients #FOIA
On 08-25 at 19:02PM
Squeaky Fromme, would-be Ford assassin and Manson devotee, released from prison
On 08-14 at 15:19PM
Likely unintended consequence of cash-for-clunkers stimulus is dampening of 2010 spending
On 08-14 at 14:34PM
Palm seeks to halt Palm Pre Android theme on copyright and trademark ground
On 08-12 at 17:30PM
Congressional investigation demonstrates Karl Rove lied about his active role in US attorney's firing
On 08-12 at 16:20PM
Family of New York City swine flu victim to sue city for failure to secure school #nyc #swineflu
On 08-12 at 12:59PM
Real Network's DVD copying software deemed to break DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions
On 08-12 at 12:57PM
Prepaid funeral operators indicted for $100 Million fraud
On 08-12 at 12:53PM
NY Jets join Cincinnati, Dallas, Green Bay, Houston & Seattle #NFL teams offering branded state lottery games
On 08-12 at 12:43PM
Are you the author of this blog? Adding USLaw.com to your Blogroll increases relevance. You qualify to display a USLaw Network badge.
Suggest changes to this blog's description or nominate another for inclusion. Register for updates.
Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
How do you recover money from a stop payment placed on a personal check given to you?
you can always take them to small claims court and sure them for 3 times the amo...
The company I worked for forced me to quit instead of dealing with someone harassing me, what can I do?
Look up CONSTRUCTIVE DISCHARGE...................this looks like what happened t...
 |
|
Contact Us | About Us | Celebrity Law Blog |
Our Partners | Disclaimer
| Law Blog Directory
| Law Jobs
| Law Tweets
| GoDaddy Hosting
All original material © 1999-2009 by USLaw.com. |