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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

June 29, 2010 (legal ethics items)

Posted on June 29, 2010
Fewer items than usual, as I've been out of town. . . . . . A party to an arbitration cannot file a meritless claim against the assigned arbitrator and hope to get the arbitrator recused for a conflict --...

ABA applauds its successful efforts to prevent Congressional legislation from regulating the practice of law

Posted on June 29, 2010
Here's the ABA's statement celebrating the carve-out in the financial reform legislation that might have otherwise regulated the practice of law. The text: The American Bar Association and its nearly 400,000 members?indeed, all practicing lawyers in the United States?are gratified...

Second State Adopts Uniform Bar Exam

Posted on June 29, 2010
North Dakota follows Missouri as the second state to adopt the NCBE's Uniform Bar Exam. Previous coverage about this potentially important trend is here, here, and here.

Gucci, Guess?, Moss

Posted on June 29, 2010
A magistrate judge in Manhattan rejected Gucci's claim of attorney client privilege for communications between company officers and inhouse "lawyer" Jonathan Moss, who is a law graduate (Fordham 1993) and was a member of the CA bar until 1996 or...

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legal ethics bits and pieces (June 28, 2010)

Posted on June 28, 2010
A $500 million malpractice suit against Charbourne was tossed out. (h/t: American Lawyer Media) . . . . . If it's hard to be accepted at Yale Law School, it's essentially impossible at Princeton Law School. But you have to...

Ernest Lidge, "Client Interests and a Lawyer's Duty to Expedite Litigation: Does Model Rule 3.2 Impose Any Independent Obligations?"

Posted on June 28, 2010
Article here. Abstract: Rule 3.2 of the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct ("Model Rules") requires lawyers to "make reasonable efforts to expedite litigation consistent with the interests of the client," while other rules impose complementary obligations...

Deborah Rhode on leadership for lawyers

Posted on June 28, 2010
Her thoughts -- and criticism of the profession for failing to teach leadership skills -- are here.

legal ethics in the news (June 27, 2010)

Posted on June 27, 2010
In Kidwell v. Sybaritic, the Supreme Court of Minnesota rejected a suit by an in-house lawyer who claimed to be a whistle-blower. The court declared: The court of appeals reversed, holding that Kidwell did not engage in conduct protected by...

The state of Louisiana's inability to offer contingency fees to private lawyers concerning the BP spill

Posted on June 27, 2010
Interesting post on this topic -- Louisiana is a state where the government cannot offer private practice lawyers contingency fees -- at California Attorney's Fees Blog. Plus, a funny video.

Blaming the lawyers doesn't help convicted CEO

Posted on June 25, 2010
ALM is carrying this article about Brocade's former CEO, Gregory Reyes, who was convicted in a backdating scandal. At the sentencing, the strategy of blaming the lawyers for bad advice didn't work.

Robert F. Cochran, Jr., "Collaborative Practice?s Radical Possibilities for the Legal Profession: '[Two Lawyers and Two Clients] for the Situation"

Posted on June 25, 2010
Article here. Abstract: Collaborative Practice (CP) significantly changes the way that legal disputes are resolved from beginning to end. CP is a dramatic shift from the way law is generally practiced today in the United States and it has the...

"Honest services" theories of fraud are trimmed back

Posted on June 25, 2010
Lots of coverage at the Conglomerate, White Collar Crime Prof Blog, and elsewhere, about the US Supreme Court's cases trimming back the "honest services" theory of fraud. Over the years, the theory was sometimes the focus of claims that prosecutors...

Drill, Judge, Drill

Posted on June 24, 2010
From The National Law Journal: The judge who blocked the Obama administration's moratorium on deep-water oil drilling has an image as a stern jurist, but he has sparked little controversy over the years. With a reversal record since 2000 that...

legal ethics news & developments (June 24, 2010)

Posted on June 24, 2010
From The Guardian (UK), "Time to debate how we can sustain access to justice for the poor." . . . . . From the WSJ law blog, "Future Remains Cloudy for Legal Biz." Similar analysis from American Lawyer Media. Not...

SCOTUS Curtails F-cubed Securities Litigation

Posted on June 24, 2010
The Supreme Court ruled today that foreign plaintiffs cannot sue a foreign defendant for securities fraud under 1934 Act Section 10(b) over securities purchased outside the United States (so called f-cubed securities litigation). This holding does not directly pertain to...

Bankruptcy conflict: global firm represents largest creditor and may not represent debtor

Posted on June 24, 2010
Bankruptcy conflicts raise some complicated issues, as where GE, the largest creditor, was represented by the global firm, DLA Piper, that wanted to represent the debtor. The court found the conflict insurmountable.

Interview with judicial ethics experts on Judge Feldman's stock ownership

Posted on June 24, 2010
Brief interview here with Charles Geyh and Deborah Rhode. The news accounts are a little frustrating, in that they seem to suggest that Judge Feldman does not presently own shares of stock in the company that ran the ill-fated oil...

California Supreme Court denies review in Kirk v. First American Title

Posted on June 24, 2010
At least for now, the Court of Appeal decision stands -- and therefore some ethical walls prevent imputation of conflicts ("vicarious" conflicts as they say in California) even in private practice settings.

What might the Court's decision in Holder v. HLP mean for future federal constraints on attorney advice?

Posted on June 23, 2010
The media and blogosphere are flooded with coverage of the Court's decision Monday in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, calling it everything from "a smashing victory for the rationale of material support laws" (see here) to "the same sort of...

What's in an inflated grade? (and Ostrau's Law)

Posted on June 23, 2010
There's lots of blawgospheric commentary on the New York Times article about retroactively bumped-up law school grades. Back when I was a hiring partner, as far as I was concerned, grades were about the 4th or 5th best information you...

odds and ends (June 23, 2010)

Posted on June 23, 2010
Alice Woolley, at the University of Calgary's blawg, on, The True Bright Line Conflicts Rule. . . . . . Hildebrandt's 9th Annual Law Firm General Counsel Forum will be held September 13-14, in Manhattan. . . . . ....

Sheriff will try to record attorney client communications

Posted on June 23, 2010
From Law of Criminal Defense Blog, here's news that a Florida sheriff will attempt to record all jailhouse attorney client telephone calls.

In Memoriam: Steven Krane of Proskauer

Posted on June 23, 2010
Very sad news. Steven C. Krane, of the Proskauer firm, passed away. Known for his integrity and his mastery of legal ethics, he certainly cast a long shadow on our field of law.

Elena Kagan and the Good Luck of Disappointment

Posted on June 23, 2010
If Elena Kagan had gotten the Texas deanship, it is unlikely that she would have become solicitor general. She would not have had the more visible Harvard deanship and the spectacular fundraising record that Harvard enabled. If Elena Kagan had...

CLE Cap and Trade

Posted on June 22, 2010
Perhaps like me, you have a lot more CLE credits than you could possibly use in a lifetime. Many of mine are in hard to get legal ethics. I propose a market in excess credits. I could, for example, charge...

Amicus Briefs in Ethics Cases?

Posted on June 22, 2010
I do a lot of work related to patent law, and have authored amicus briefs on patent issues (some pure, some quasi-ethical), and it is fairly common for patent professors and organizations to file amicus briefs with the Court of...

Employee E-mail and Privilege and the Quon Case

Posted on June 21, 2010
The issue resolved in City of Ontario v. Quon was whether a police officer's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his employer, the police department, reviewed text messages on his pager for legitimate business reasons. The Court held that the....

Bar Applicants: Disclose, Disclose, Disclose...

Posted on June 21, 2010
A law graduate was held unfit to take a bar exam for the combined conduct of engaging in selling 300-500 Chinese knock-off DVDs and not disclosing the subsequent copyright infringement suit in on his bar application until too late in...

HP in-house department hires law school grads?and Northwestern's a beneficiary

Posted on June 21, 2010
If this is a sign of what's to come, it's huge news. According to this ALM story, HP will be hiring law school graduates for its in-house department. Typically, the in-house departments hire biglaw associates after a few years of...

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