Ethics

Questions have consequences, too.

Posted on August 14, 2020
Living in San Diego, when I ride my motorcycle in the hills near the border I sometimes encounter ICE roadblocks. Once I was asked where I was born. I said, "Oakland, California." Oddly enough, that satisfied the officers, and they...

Two terrific virtual events are

Posted on July 25, 2020
Two terrific virtual events are taking place over the next couple of weeks related to Professional Responsibility scholarship and teaching. All are welcome! July 30, AALS Section on Professional Responsibility Virtual Workshop Conference Session 1: Cerebral? High-Achieving Women in the...

Does your PR class include any drafting exercises?

Posted on April 01, 2011
The comments to my earlier post were interesting (at least to an ethics wonk), so I thought I'd ask a similar question: do you include any drafting exercises in your PR class? This semester I ask two groups of students...

Plaintiffs lawyer makes it out of committee

Posted on April 01, 2011
I can't find a good news account about John J. McConnell, a plaintiffs lawyer nominated for the federal bench, who made it out of committee. Being a former plaintiff's lawyer, I don't see how that practice disqualifies one for the...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Does your PR class cover Brady obligations?

Posted on March 31, 2011
Above the Law discusses Justice Ginsburg's dissent in Connick, which makes reference to the possibility that Brady obligations are not taught in some law schools because criminal procedure isn't a required course in many law schools. Does your PR course...

ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission Releases Paper on MJP

Posted on March 30, 2011
The ABA?s Ethics 20/20 Commission has released an issues paper (here) relating to multijurisdictional practice. The paper identifies possible mechanisms for liberalizing cross-border practice and asks for feedback on whether such changes would be desirable...

Alice Woolley's New Book

Posted on March 30, 2011
Alice Woolley's book, the Canadian edition of Understanding Lawyers' Ethics, has just been published by Lexis/Nexis. Although it has the same title as the U.S. edition, it is based on Canadian authorities and is completely original. As one would expect,...

The debate between the AALS and the ABA over accreditation

Posted on March 30, 2011
There's a post at Paul Caron's Tax Prof Blog, and he linked to this letter from AALS to the ABA expressing displeasure over proposed changes to accreditation. This is a hotly contested matter and reasonable people disagree. But, overall, imho,...

WSJ Law Blog: "Clifford Chance Dodges Fraud Lawsuit"

Posted on March 30, 2011
This blurb from the WSJ Law Blog about this new Third Circuit opinon is a useful example of doctrine and practicalities surrounding (1) who is the speaker, client or lawyer, when formal securities documents are circulated or filed?; and (2)...

Peter Margulies, "Reforming Lawyers into Irrelevance?: Reconciling Crisis and Constraint at the Office of Legal Counsel"

Posted on March 30, 2011
Peter Margulies has been producing a lot of interesting scholarship on lawyering and the global war on terror. His latest article is here. Abstract: "A Predator drone attack in Pakistan and the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that the Bush administration used...

US Supremes Issue Connick Decision; Prosecutor's office has no section 1983 liability for failure to train regarding Brady violations where the liability is premised on a single violation of Brady

Posted on March 29, 2011
Here's Connick. Will the specter of civil liability for failure to train when there is more than one Brady violation provide an incentive for prosecutors to fulfill their Brady obligations?

Concurring Opinions on "What Difference Representation?"

Posted on March 29, 2011
Head over to Concurring Opinions for a fascinating online symposium devoted to a forthcoming Yale Law Journal article by Jim Greiner and Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak titled, "What Difference Representation? Offers, Actual Use, and the Need for Randomization...

New law blog rankings out

Posted on March 29, 2011
Spring means March Madness and Rankings Madness. Paul Caron has the rankings of law blogs for 2010 and we at Legal Ethics Forum do appreciate that you take the time to stop by.

Law firm fakes photo of 9-11 firefighter

Posted on March 29, 2011
This can't end well, nor should it. To drum up business, the firm photoshopped a picture of a recently hired firefighter and made it seem that he had worked at the 9-11 disaster. He's not happy.

Authority: What Is It?

Posted on March 26, 2011
I went to a talk by Walter Olson, author most recently of "Schools of Misrule," about the many deficiencies of legal education today (too liberal), and of the blog Overlawyered, which manages to find every example of a complaint seeking...

100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (which led to Max Steuer's famous cross-examination)

Posted on March 25, 2011
[posted by John Steele] The horrific fire, which killed over 140 garment workers, led to workplace safety laws and to the rise of unionization. The subsequent trial is sometimes discussed in legal ethics circles, both because of the ethics of...

Must a lawyer be appointed if a defendant who fails to pay child support faces jail time?

Posted on March 24, 2011
The Supreme Court considered this question yesterday during oral argument for Turner v. Rogers (transcript here). Adam Liptak summarizes the argument in Justices Grapple With Issue of Right to Lawyers in Child Support Cases. The ABA filed an amicus brief...

Norman Spaulding, "Independence and Experimentalism in the Department of Justice"

Posted on March 23, 2011
Readers may recall that when the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility recommended that John Yoo be referred for discipline, the recommendation was over-ruled. Norman Spaulding's new article addresses a much broader topic than that, but it does include a detailed...

The Lawyer Who Wore a Wire

Posted on March 22, 2011
Omaha World-Herald (w/ a h/t to ABA Journal): The judge in the case held that the crime-fraud exception applied. Great little fact pattern for PR class. The feds made the lawyer an offer he couldn't refuse: bring the client a...

Russell Wheeler, "Regulating Supreme Court Justices' Ethics?Cures Worse Than the Disease?"

Posted on March 22, 2011
Op-ed here, from a fellow at the Brookings Institute. A small taste: Whatever the merits of the accusations [that the Supreme Court justices are un-regulated]?about which I express no opinion here?the proposals [to subject the court to binding recusal rules]...

Legal Ethics Items (March 22)

Posted on March 22, 2011
The Supreme Court granted cert to Maples v. Thomas and Rehberg v. Paulk yesterday. Maples involves a death row appeal handled initially by lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell who left the firm, so never received copies of a critical ruling...

Odds and ends (March 21, 2011)

Posted on March 21, 2011
Miami Herald: " Pentagon defense lawyers are protesting a 26-page document that regulates their work at Guantánamo in a similar fashion to the civilian lawyers who are suing on behalf of the captives." (h/t: Law of Criminal Defense) The Ethical...

An Important Lawyer Standing Case from the 2nd Cir. Today

Posted on March 21, 2011
It seems like it was argued a decade ago but it was only last spring. As quoted in tomorrow's issue of the NY Law Journal: "Attorneys, journalists and human rights organizations have standing to challenge amendments to the Foreign Intelligence...

What it feels like to Think You Might Have a Duty To Report.

Posted on March 21, 2011
For the first time in my life, I had to consult a lawyer about legal ethics. Boiled down, I learned that a fraud may have been committed in connection with something I had had nothing to do with. There was...

Negotiation techniques, from the Berkeley students

Posted on March 19, 2011
It's not strictly legal ethics, but the Berkeley students have graciously offered this video to prepare students for mock negotiation competitions. I'm hoping that not all of the competitions present this much of a challenge.

"The Lincoln Lawyer"

Posted on March 19, 2011
We went to see "The Lincoln Lawyer" as a last act of quasi-professional slumming before the end of spring break. The story does not quite hold together, as is usual for such movies, but it almost does. And in an...

Take a course from Rob Vischer (and from Barbara Glesner Fine and Jerry Uelman and Bill Henderson)

Posted on March 18, 2011
Our very own Rob Vischer was named as one of the 23 law profs from whom you should take a course. Having seen him present on ethics issues, I concur, even though he's nominated for his teaching of contracts. In...

Predictions of a new political attack on Justice Thomas; it's time to speak out for judicial independence

Posted on March 17, 2011
A reporter on Huffington Post is reporting that House Democrats are "drafting demands that Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas be disbarred in Missouri for perjury, and investigated by the Department of Justice for bribery, according to House Judiciary Committee...

Who files patent infringement suits? (The business of litigation)

Posted on March 17, 2011
Maybe this is interesting only to patent and IP geeks, but Patently O offers us two charts showing who brings the most patent infringement suits and who sues the greatest number of defendants in such suits. No. 1 is Acacia,...

Bevill, "me too" claims, and "full-on, formal" representations of corporate officers

Posted on March 16, 2011
Over the last year or so, we've had some discussions about the Bevill case's holding, which limits the ability of an organizational agent (e.g., a corporate officer) to assert that she/he had an attorney client relationship (ACR) with the entity's...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.