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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

Lindsay Lohan's court-room notes & hi-def cameras in the court

Posted on July 08, 2010
News stories are showing photos of the notes that a celebrity defendant (Lindsay Lohan) took during a court hearing. It seems intrusive to me and could invade the privilege. As part of the court's control over the court room, it...

Lawyer Alleges He's Lebron James's Father

Posted on July 08, 2010
It sounds like an April Fool's joke, doesn't it? But apparently, it's an actual lawsuit. (See here and here.) The lawyer alleges that he had a brief affair with Lebron James's mother about 9 months before Lebron was born. The...

Post-Textron decision denies IRS access to auditor-held documents

Posted on July 07, 2010
Discussion at TheCorporateCounsel. The DC Circuit's new decision is US v. Deloitte.

Update on Uniform Collaborative Law Act

Posted on July 07, 2010
Richard Cassidy has the news at On Lawyering.

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Ninth Circuit says defendants were "fools" to represent themselves; upholds conviction

Posted on July 07, 2010
Here's an interesting new Ninth Circuit case on the right to self-represent, US v. Johnson. The trial judge conducted a Faretta hearing and "practically begged [the defendants] to accept counsel but they refused." The court added, a bit harshly if...

Weis v. Georgia, and an accused's right to continuity of counsel

Posted on July 07, 2010
At Terry Lenamon on the Death Penalty there is a nice round-up of source documents in Weis v. Georgia, the case that Renee posted about yesterday and which was the subject of an Adam Liptak article in the New York...

legal ethics round-up (July 7, 2010)

Posted on July 07, 2010
At Legal Malpractice Law Review, Ben Wasserman looks at a Pennsylvania case, Rizzo v. Haines, where the lawyer's alleged mistake was so obvious than expert was not needed. [edited] . . . . . Ellen Podgor and Tom Kirkendall analyze...

USCA 9 Adopts Bevill test

Posted on July 07, 2010
In the much-discussed Ruehle case the Ninth Circuit chose not to decide whether to endorse In re Bevill, Bresler & Schulman Asset Mgmt. Corp., 805 F.2d 120, 123 (3d Cir. 1986), which makes it hard (and on some readings essentially...

Mitchell Simon guest post on contingency fees and government clients

Posted on July 06, 2010
[This guest post is by Mitchell Simon, of Franklin Pierce. Simon teaches PR, torts, and Fundamentals of Practice, and is an active practitioner in several fields.] In his June 27, 2010 post, John Steele noted that the Louisiana legislature declined...

legal ethics bits and pieces (July 6, 2010)

Posted on July 06, 2010
The DOJ is fighting to preserve the redactions in its report on the torture memos. You may recall that the name of one of the junior lawyers had been redacted throughout the report -- except in one footnote. But it...

National press picks up on the Supreme Court's attention to the law of lawyering

Posted on July 06, 2010
Marcia Coyle's article is here. She quotes our own Renee Knake, who's been covering the issue at this blog for some time.

Motion to Disqualify Judge Feldman in Moratorium Case

Posted on July 06, 2010
Here is the motion to disqualify Judge Feldman, based on his investments. Judge Feldman enjoined the implementation of the US moratorium on exploratory offshore drilling in the Gulf and refused to stay his own order pending appeal. The following paragraph...

Should a prosecutor be able to select the lawyer for a defendant facing the death penalty?

Posted on July 06, 2010
As Adam Liptak reports in today's NYT Sidebar, the Supreme Court may soon answer this question. Article here. A brief excerpt follows below: When the State of Georgia ran out of money to pay the lawyers for a man facing...

Michael Serota, "Professional Values, Lawyer Satisfaction, and the Law School Curriculum: The Need for a Personal Constitution"

Posted on July 05, 2010
Article here. Abstract: In this article, I argue that law schools fail to prepare students to face the personal challenges of lawyering because they do not emphasize the central role that personal values play in making career decisions. I then...

legal ethics round-up (July 5, 2010)

Posted on July 05, 2010
From On the Docket is this interesting post about a North Carolina decision about the spirit or rule 4.3, and how some attorneys used a too-clever-by-half ploy to take out an opposing expert. . . . . . From the...

Elena Kagan and the ACOG report

Posted on July 04, 2010
An excellent summary at Slate. Again, I don't see an ethics violation unless Kagan was crafting an edit she knew to be false or misleading, which seems exceedingly far-fetched. But it's an interesting insight into the way lawyers can affect...

Judicial Electioneering

Posted on July 03, 2010
From LegalEthicsForum: The growing rift between liberal and conservative justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has once again caused indecision. This time, the issue was whether Justice Gableman should be disciplined for the misleading advertisement that his campaign committee aired...

Elena Kagan and "law all the way down"

Posted on July 02, 2010
She used the phrase often enough and emphatically enough that it seems to be a phrase she chose with great care. But does she mean that judges really don't do policy? Or does the phrase encompass policy as well?

Round-up of the "Web's Worst Lawyer Commercials"

Posted on July 02, 2010
At Urlesque. Call me old school, but my favorite it still Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro. (with a hat-tip to Michigan Auto Lawyer's Blog)

Legal ethics stuff (July 2, 2010)

Posted on July 02, 2010
At The Ethical Quandary, the lawyers from Hinshaw look at how discovery sanctions can drive a wedge, including a rule 1.7 wedge, between attorney and client. I concur, and this problem, now 5-6 years old, will continue growing. . ....

A narcissistic, maniacal mental case

Posted on July 02, 2010
Posted Jun 30, 2010 1:32 PM CDT By Martha Nei on another blog A six-month suspension has been recommended for an Illinois lawyer who repeatedly criticized a judge, calling him, at one point, a "narcissistic, maniacal mental case" during a...

Gucci, Guess?, & Moss (Part 2)

Posted on July 02, 2010
Some interesting observations on reading the magistrate judge's opinion rejecting Gucci's claim of privilege for communications with its director of legal services because he was was an inactive member of the California bar. Jonathan Moss, the lawyer (or "lawyer"), was...

and a few more items (July 2, 2010)

Posted on July 02, 2010
Patently-O comments on the Therasense amicus brief by our own David Hricik. . . . . . John Flood discusses a new report by Winmark on the future of the UK's legal profession. . . . . . Law Firm...

Global Survey of In-House Counsel

Posted on July 01, 2010
Report here from Laurence Simons (30-page pdf); ALM article here. US in-house lawyers saw flatter pay and reductions in headcount.

legal ethics and "law all the way down" (July 1, 2010)

Posted on July 01, 2010
Patrick Malone and Jon Bauer offer this article arguing that secret settlements may violate rule 3.4(f) and 5.6(b). I'm dubious of efforts to use the ethics rules to attack confidential settlements, but if you disagree please leave a comment. ....

Indigent Defense in Georgia (Again)

Posted on June 30, 2010
Ga. Capital Case Revives Controversy Over State's Public Defender System Janet L. Conley, Fulton County Daily Report, June 30, 2010 In an opinion that once again raises concerns about the state's shortage of funds for indigent capital defense, a divided...

legal ethics odds & ends (June 30, 2010)

Posted on June 30, 2010
In Walker v. Cromartie, the Supreme Court of Georgia rules that it's not unconstitutional for the state to require professional malpractice plaintiffs (even indigent ones) to file expert declarations with the complaint. . . . . . Elena Kagan stressed...

New York State Bar names public service fund after Steven C. Krane

Posted on June 30, 2010
A fitting tribute. Details here.

Could a Justice Kagan Write a Letter of Recommendation for Miguel Estrada?

Posted on June 30, 2010
Sen. Sessions asked Elena Kagan if she thought Miguel Estrada was qualified to sit on the circuit court (Bush 1 had nominated him but the nomination died in the Senate). Kagan said he was qualified even for the Supreme Court....

Unconventional regulation

Posted on June 30, 2010
The imperfections in the market for legal services are significant. Most notably, clients often lack information about which lawyers are in fact better than others, and can rely on status heuristics to make consumption choices - e.g.., employing the most...

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