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Ethics

Legal Ethics Forum

Covering Legal Ethics

Post Frequency: 11.2/day

Last Entry: August 14, 2020 at 13:23:48

Oathiness

Posted on June 23, 2009
The 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, 2009
Paper 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, 2009
The 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, 2009
Here 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...

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Is moral deference a problem?

Posted on June 22, 2009
The 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, 2009
A 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, 2009
I 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, 2009
As 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, 2009
Orwell 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, 2009
Several 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, 2009
Last 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, 2009
Alice 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, 2009
Formerly 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, 2009
At 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, 2009
News 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, 2009
Like 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, 2009
Story at White Collar Crime Prof Blog.

Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Ali G, Bruno) as undisclosed principal

Posted on June 15, 2009
Via 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, 2009
His 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, 2009
Via 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.

One federal agency sues another.

Posted on June 12, 2009
Here'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, 2009
Georgetown'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, 2009
The 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, 2009
What 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, 2009
Not 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, 2009
I 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, 2009
Indispensable for people interested in biglaw.

Professor Alex Long on the Caperton Decision

Posted on June 08, 2009
Following 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, 2009
The 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...

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