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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

Hricik Asks: Got Claims?

Posted on March 17, 2008
All, 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, 2008
OLC 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, 2008
Here 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, 2008
Here 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...

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Dennis Ventry on "Cooperative Tax Regulation"

Posted on March 17, 2008
Dennis 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, 2008
Larry 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....

Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in Enron trials; was Skilling nifonged?

Interesting Hot Potato Case out of Utah

Posted on March 13, 2008
In 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...

Interesting Hot Potato Case out of Utah

"Cutting to the Core of America's Justice System"

Posted on March 10, 2008
That'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, 2008
My 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, 2008
Legal 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, 2008
Here 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
There'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, 2008
I 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, 2008
There 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, 2008
MR 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, 2008
You 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
Thanks 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, 2008
WSJ 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, 2008
According 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, 2008
There'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, 2008
Here 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, 2008
This 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, 2008
Here'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, 2008
According 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, 2008
There'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, 2008
David 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...

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