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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

"More attorneys using the iPad"

Posted on September 08, 2010
The Mac Lawyer discusses iPad use at Sonnenschein, where the attorneys use them at their own expense.

Wrongfully evicted tenant cannot sue landlord's lawyer

Posted on September 08, 2010
New York Attorney Malpractice Blog has the details. Privity was lacking, so the claim is defective, says the court's opinion.

Legal Ethics Items (September 8, 2010)

Posted on September 08, 2010
In re Currency Management: a bankruptcy court pops a lawyer for using BK court to re-litigate claims that had been lost in state court. Sometimes lawyers don't have a sense of when a dispute is over. (Btw, the BK court's...

Allegations that Winnipeg Judge's Sexual Photographs Created a Reasonable Apprehension of Bias

Posted on September 08, 2010
The Winnipeg Free Press reported today (Here) that a new complaint has been filed against Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Lori Douglas at the Canadian Judicial Council. Lori Douglas is the judge whose photographs were posted by her husband...

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When one judge says "you must," and another says "you must not"

Posted on September 07, 2010
Strange story here, out of Florida. (h/t: our commenter Judith) A lawyer sued the Church of Scientology and part of the settlement was an agreement, approved by the court, not to represent anyone against Scientology again. (How is that ethical?)...

TheLawyer.com publishes UK 200 figures

Posted on September 07, 2010
The story and stats are at TheLawyer,com. Lead sentence: "The?continuing tightness of the equity at some of the UK?s leading firms is illustrated by figures published today in The Lawyer UK 200 Annual Report 2010."

Diversity in the US and UK

Posted on September 07, 2010
John Flood has thoughts about the UK, and Vivia Chen reports the statistics on non-equity partners and gender. Isn't it possible that the stats Chen reports can be viewed as half-full or half-empty? If there are more women in the...

Legal Ethics news (September 7, 2010)

Posted on September 07, 2010
Fittingly, the inaugural recipient of the Harry B. Sondheim Professional Responsibility Award, given by the State Bar of California, is Harry B. Sondheim. Most recently, he's chaired the Rules Revision Commission here. Here's a round-up of recent disciplinary actions by...

An Aspiring Law Professor's Violation of Rule 8.4(c)?

Posted on September 07, 2010
Brian Leiter describes a remarkable attempt by an aspiring law professor to sabotage a competing applicant's job talk at a major law school. The perpetrator allegedly sent the competing applicant an email under a pseudonym, which falsely suggested that the...

Sir Cyril Smith struck a small blow for freedom

Posted on September 06, 2010
Telegraph: From Sir Cyril Smith's obit: In 1985 [Smith] was instrumental in making a small dent in one of the biggest closed shops of all, the Bar. A group of Labour MPs had brought a libel action against him, claiming...

Legal ethics news (September 6, 2010)

Posted on September 06, 2010
ALM: Pennsy jury awards $1.8 million in legal malpractice case. Buffalo Business First: Equity partners from the shuttered Florida office of Hodgson Russ LLP sue the firm and firm management. For many years, firms have toyed with buying management liability...

Opening paragraphs you wouldn't want written about yourself

Posted on September 05, 2010
From an unpublished California Court of Appeal opinion, Robbins v. Taylor: It is a rare case in which the person who allegedly engaged in complicated machinations to disguise his true ownership of a corporation ? purportedly in an effort to...

Legal ethics news (September 5, 2010)

Posted on September 05, 2010
From Texas Lawyer (ALM): The Texas Department of Insurance wants insurers to notify insureds when a settlement is made. The fear is that lawyers are increasingly stealing the settlements and the insureds never even know the payment had been made....

Ninth Circuit: Faretta waiver upheld; court's rejection of defendant's about-face not reversible error (McCormick v. Adams)

Posted on September 04, 2010
Opinion. Some interesting grafs: In line with that precedent, we have recognized that "[t]here are times when the criminal justice system would be poorly served by allowing the defendant to reverse his course at the last minute and insist upon...

More reflections on sex, lawyers, judges and race...

Posted on September 04, 2010
Op-ed writing has some significant disadvantages. Unlike academic writing, it doesn't allow time for rumination and rethinking ideas to get the expression of them right. And unlike blogging it doesn't have the conversational aspect which allows one to restate or...

Margaret Tarkington, "Government Speech and the Publicly Employed Lawyer"

Posted on September 04, 2010
Article. Abstract:In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the U.S. Supreme Court incorporated the ?government speech? doctrine into its case law regarding the speech rights of public employees. This incorporation had the effect of nullifying a public employee?s free speech rights whenever the...

Gonzaga seeks to fill ethics chair

Posted on September 04, 2010
(h/t: Prawfsblawg) Gonzaga University School of Law seeks applications for the newly established Donald Curran and VaLena Scarpellli Curran Professor of Legal Ethics. The purpose of this chair is to advance teaching and scholarship in the areas of ethics and...

Legal Ethics bits and pieces (September 3, 2010)

Posted on September 03, 2010
According to this story from Courthouse News, Navy lawyers may now disclose client conditions that may lead the client to harm himself or herself, thus aligning the Navy JAG rules with Model Rule 1.14. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find...

Some recent ethics scholarship

Posted on September 03, 2010
Michael Hatfield, Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation. Abstract: This Essay addresses the increasingly common social situation in which tax lawyers are confronted with tax protester arguments and similar anti-tax system comments...

Thaddeus Hoffmeister, "Jurors in the Digital Age"

Posted on September 03, 2010
Article. Abstract: Improper use of new technology by jurors inside and outside the courtroom has become so pervasive that commentators have coined new phrases to describe it: ?Google Mistrials,? the ?Twitter Effect,? and ?Internet-Tainted Jurors.? Yet, despite the attention garnered,...

DOJ seeks experience lawyer for OPR position

Posted on September 03, 2010
Announcement here. Key passages: The United States Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), is seeking an experienced attorney for the position of Assistant Counsel in Washington, D.C. The Assistant Counsel investigates allegations of professional misconduct made against federal...

Criminal defense lawyer as paraclete

Posted on September 03, 2010
I previously posted about the post by Colin Friedersdorf at the Daily Dish, recounting the views of various lawyers about their jobs. One criminal defense lawyer said this: When people need my help, my answer is always, ?Yes. I will...

Graphic illustration of student loan law/economics

Posted on September 03, 2010
As we continue to ponder if law schools are a bubble economy, this graphic captures the law and economics of student loans. (h/t: Above the Law)

Kagan announces 12th recusal

Posted on September 03, 2010
Details at Blog of the Legal Times.

Ira Robbins, "Ghostwriting: Filling in the Gaps of Pro Se Prisoners' Access to the Courts"

Posted on September 02, 2010
Article. Abstract:Compared with other litigants, pro se prisoners are at an inherent disadvantage when they try to vindicate their rights. They lack many of the resources enjoyed by non-prisoner litigants. They have limited finances and limited access to legal-research materials...

In re Ehler (Missouri Supreme Court; disbarment)

Posted on September 02, 2010
Opinion here. Key passage: The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel (OCDC) seeks to discipline the law license of Renae Lynn Ehler for multiple violations of the rules of professional conduct in her representation of a client in a dissolution proceeding...

Bankruptcy case out of California applies substantial relationship test after preliminary consultation; DQ's counsel

Posted on September 02, 2010
In re Muscle Improvement. Key passages: Rule 3-310(E) applies principally to a lawyer's actual engagements for separate clients with possibly differing interests. In this case, Ms. Naimi was not retained to represent the debtors. Nonetheless, because of the initial consultation,...

Seventh Circuit affirms dismissal of lawyer's suit over disclosure of ethics investigation

Posted on September 02, 2010
Opinion here. Key passages: The plaintiff, Mervin Wolfe, is a lawyer who in 2008 ran for State's Attorney of Cumberland County, Illinois, and lost. He brought this suit in federal district court against his opponent, Barry Schaefer (the incumbent State's...

Greg McNeal, "The Silent Prosecutor: When DA's Refuse to Talk to the Media"

Posted on September 02, 2010
At The Faculty Lounge, with analysis under the ABA Model Rules and the California Rules too.

Cotchett firm wins a big, not unconscionable fee from a sophisticated client

Posted on September 01, 2010
Seven times lodestar is pretty sweet, but when it was part of an agreement between a sophisticated firm and a sophisticated client to share risks and benefits, it's not "unconscionable." Opinion from the California Court of Appeal is here. (Note:...

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