Legal Ethics Forum: Ethics

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Ethics Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Ethics

Legal Ethics Forum

Covering Legal Ethics

Post Frequency: 11.2/day

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

California law protecting clients leads to shortage of lawyers for those clients?

Posted on December 23, 2010
Story at the New York Times, about a well-intentioned law designed to protect clients from unscrupulous lawyers who took up-front fees from clients whose houses were being foreclosed. According to the article, the new law's requirement that lawyers take fees...

California Supreme Court recused in case over sale over building where court sits

Posted on December 22, 2010
News at At the Lectern, a blog devoted to appellate law in California.

Legal Ethics Items (December 21)

Posted on December 21, 2010
NYT on the harsh consequences of a California law that prohibits lawyers who work on loan modifications from receiving money until the work is complete: Homes at Risk, and No Help from Lawyers Center for Public Integrity quotes LEF contributors...

US law firms buying Cuban cigars

Posted on December 21, 2010
Funny story at CNN about new shipping rules that exposed the practice of buying Cuban cigars through European shippers -- and, according to the feds, law firms were a common destination for the contraband.

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

California Ethics Opinion on Lawyers' Use of Technology

Posted on December 18, 2010
The California Bar has issued an important ethics opinion on confidentiality issues associated with lawyers' use of technology. The opinion is here. (The opinion had been previously published in draft form.)

Ridicule in judging?

Posted on December 17, 2010
A family court judge in Ontario recently "turned to ridicule" to deal with feuding spouses. Noting that reason had failed to impress the litigants, he tried mockery instead. Noting that the ex-wife's attempt to run down her ex with a...

Jurors and the Internet

Posted on December 16, 2010
I've heard tales of litigants planting stories and buying Google keywords so that if jurors search they'll find stories that will hopefully sway the juror... Related to that... Texas is considering an amendment that would emphasize that jurors should communicate...

Justice Scalia Takes Some Tea

Posted on December 16, 2010
We learned this week about our latest tea partier ? Justice Scalia. Congresswoman Bachmann (R MN) invited him to appear before the Congressional Tea Party caucus at a meeting open to other Members of Congress but not open to the...

What's going on in the New Jersey courts?

Posted on December 16, 2010
George Conk, at Otherwise, keeps us up to date as the high court in that state has become mired in political in-fighting and procedural maneuvering.

Are faked attorney signatures the "next huge issue" in the forclosure scandals?

Posted on December 16, 2010
From the SBM Blog: A new wrinkle in foreclosure cases has emerged in the 23 states in which foreclosures must be approved by a judge -- false attorney signatures on court documents. In a deposition cited in the Pennsylvania lawsuit,...

WSJ Law Blog: Does the Health-Care Judge Have Conflicts?

Posted on December 15, 2010
Analysis, with comments from Professors Charles Geyh and James Sample, available here.

Debra Moss Curtis, "Attorney Discipline Nationwide: A Comparative Analysis of Process and Statistics"

Posted on December 14, 2010
Article. Abstract: This purpose of this article is to examine the process and statistics of attorney discipline nationwide and draw conclusions about information about them available to the public who may be hiring attorneys. Attorney discipline systems are promulgated individually...

Adam Liptak (NYT), "Supreme Court Appoints Lawyers for Orphaned Arguments"

Posted on December 14, 2010
News article here, citing a new article, Should the Supreme Court Stop Inviting Amici Curiae to Defend Abandoned Lower Court Decisions?, by Brian Goldman, which has this abstract: Forty-two times since 1954 ? approximately twice every three Terms ? the...

Legal Ethics Items (December 14)

Posted on December 14, 2010
From the WSJ Blog: Good News for 'Heavy Hitters': High Court Sidesteps Lawyer Advertising Dispute The ABA Journal covers the story here, as does the Washington Post here A lawyer who makes house calls Tuscaloosa News reports on the tight...

Scalia dissents from denial of cert in case where death penalty was reversed because of defense counsel's decision not to make a closing argument

Posted on December 13, 2010
Dissent here. Of course, Justice Scalia's offering only his side of the analysis, but it's interesting to think about the reasons that a criminal defense lawyer might deliberately waive closing argument -- here, apparently because counsel thought it would result...

Josh King (part 3 of 3): The Costs of Overregulation of Attorney Advertising

Posted on December 13, 2010
Many people I talk to (and, indeed, many of the commentators on my previous posts regarding attorney advertising, acknowledge that there are flaws in the heavy-handed ways that most states regulate attorney advertising, but feel that these warts and overreach...

Criminal subpoena enforced against law firms to obtain documents of foreign, unindicted companies

Posted on December 11, 2010
US v. Grand Jury Subpoena served on White & Case LLP. In a matter with parallel criminal and civil tracks, the civil plaintiffs had obtained documents from foreign companies and the prosecutors wanted the grand jury to see those documents....

Ninth Circuit reverses Goyal conviction; chides prosecutors

Posted on December 11, 2010
Opinion here. Judge Kozinski's concurrence lists a number of cases where prosecutors have over-reached, criticizes the prosecution, and even tweaks the trial court judge

Why Legal Ethics?

Posted on December 10, 2010
David Hricik's post encouraged some reminiscing about how this blog got started. But an equally interesting question is how we all came to study (or practice in the field of) legal ethics in the first place. For many of us,...

My (Mis)Use of Sharswood

Posted on December 10, 2010
In Understanding Lawyers? Ethics, I have two references to Sharswood, which I got from secondary sources. The first reference is Sharswood?s assertion that ?The lawyer, who refuses his professional assistance because in his view the cause is unjust and indefensible,...

Legal Ethics Items (December 10, 2010)

Posted on December 10, 2010
Stanford launches new, major study of the legal profession. (h/t: ABA Journal) Law of Criminal Defense: "Suit argues all defendants deserve counsel from the start" Plains Daily (South Dakota): "The South Dakota Supreme Court will hear arguments Jan. 11 on...

Hall v. Kalfayan: no duty ran to prospective beneficiary when lawyer was tardy and client died before executing instrument

Posted on December 10, 2010
Hall v. Kalfayan. California Court of Appeal. Key passages: "In this case, we conclude that a prospective beneficiary of a will cannot maintain a cause of action for legal malpractice against the attorney who drafted the will but did not...

Judicial Vacancies

Posted on December 09, 2010
Here is the latest on judicial vacancies on the federal bench: http://www.uscourts.gov/JudgesAndJudgeships/JudicialVacancies.aspx As the legislative branch and the executive work a deal on tax cuts and massive spending increases, the Senate also needs to replenish the judicial branch of government...

"Advocates must represent the vile, degenerate, repulsive," says the Supreme Court in India

Posted on December 09, 2010
Story here. "The Supreme Court denounced that a refusal to accept a brief of an accused by an advocates association or other representative body was ?a disgrace to the legal community? and ?null and void?.

Legal Ethics Items (December 9, 2010)

Posted on December 09, 2010
Concurring Opinions breaks down the details on the McCort - LA Dodgers post-nup snafu. One aspect of it brings to mind some old cases that were called "benign fraud." For example, a trusts and estates lawyer realizes that a client...

A question for some year-end reflection

Posted on December 09, 2010
I don't know how long I've been blogging with you guys (certainly inconsistently over how many years it has been), but I don't know the story of how three seemingly disparate folk got together -- Steele, Wendel, Dzienkowski. What is...

Bill Simon's (Mis)Use of Sharswood II

Posted on December 08, 2010
In an earlier post, I referred to Bill Simon?s article on Role Differentiation and Lawyers? Ethics. Bill asserted that his notion that a lawyer should correct an adversary?s mistake of law, is consistent with an adversary system. His sole support...

LA Times & WSJ reporting that post-nup about LA Dodgers will be tossed [edited]

Posted on December 07, 2010
WSJ has details. You rarely see a drafting snafu lead directly to a theory of causation with that many zeroes to the left of the decimal point. I'm sure we'll hear more about this shortly. [As the comment notes, the...

Christine Hurt on financing divorce litigation

Posted on December 07, 2010
Following up on Renee's post on the NYT article on divorce litigation financing, Christine Hurt at Conglomerate offers her thoughts.

Narcissistic Law Students on the Way? Do they Cheat More?

Posted on December 07, 2010
This article is worth reading, and the first sentence tells you that: "Narcissism has gotten a lot of attention lately, which is presumably just what it wants." We've not had much, if any, cheating we're aware of at Mercer (note...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Update on AILF's Legal Action Center Visa Bulletin Litigation (Updated 7/10/07)
The following is the latest update from AILF regarding its pening ...

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center Legislative Forecast
The ILRC Forecast on Immigration ReformJudith Golub, Executive Dir...

The Christian Legal Society and "discrimation": Response to Susan
In response to Susan's post, I'm inclined to think that, yes, the ...

Stacy Scnheider Legal Commentator Apprentice

Catholic Legal Theory and life and death
Tom Berg’s question regarding the propriety or not of capital pu...