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Legal Profession Blog 
Cover legal ethics, bar discipline, business practice, the tension between the bar and the academy, ethical theory, and comparative legal professions.
Post Frequency: 7.8/day Last Entry: November 20, 2009 at 10:25:19 Recent Entries: 2520
By Alan Childress, Mike Frisch, and Jeff Lipshaw
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Thy Partner's Keeper
Posted on November 20, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department rejected the Departmental Disciplinary Committee's call for a six-month suspension and imposed a public censure in a matter in which a law partner discovered and reported misappropriations committed by his...
Florida Adopts New Computer-Access Advertising Rule
Posted on November 19, 2009The Florida Supreme Court, in response to a petition from the Florida Bar, has withdrawn its earlier opinion on proposed amendments to rules regulating computer-accessed attorney advertising and adopted a version of the Bar's proposed amendments. The new Rule is...
Reconsideration Denied In Bar Admission Matter Involving Unpaid Student Loans
Posted on November 19, 2009An applicant for admission to the New York Bar sought an order vacating the denial or reargument. The Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department denied the relief, concluding that the procedures regulating the admissions process were satisfied and that...
Is Law a Serious Discipline? And Who Are You Calling an Ignoramus?
Posted on November 19, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I'm sitting in the University of Michigan Law Library (by courtesy!) reading a delightful and irreverent essay on Anglo-American common law as a discipline by Peter Goodrich at Cardozo. Here's the abstract of Intellection and Indiscipline...
Dissent in West Virginia Court Email Disclosure Case
Posted on November 19, 2009Justice Workman has posted his dissent in the recent case before the West Virginia Supreme Court in which the majority had restricted public access to emails from another justice to the litigant in the Caperton v. Massey case: I agree...
Neglect + Contempt = Suspension
Posted on November 19, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today suspended the license of [a] Cleveland attorney...for one year, with the last six months of that term stayed on conditions, based on [his] repeated failures...
Same-Sex Health Care Benefits Upheld
Posted on November 19, 2009The New York Court of Appeals has affirmed the dismissal of claims brought by taxpayers that had challenged directives that had recognized the provision of public employee health insurance benefits to same-sex couples married in other states and Canada: "the...
Fee Issue Remand
Posted on November 19, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed the grant of summary judgment to a lawyer in a legal malpractice case brought pro se by the former client. The lawyer had been retained to pursue an employment discrimination claim. The...
Agreed Suspension Rejected In Favor Of Censure
Posted on November 19, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has rejected as "too severe" proposed stipulated discipline of a suspension for six months and one day and recommended public censure and probation in a disciplinary matter involving two charges. One of the matters involved a...
SuperLawyer Law School Rankings - Balloon Boy Redux
Posted on November 19, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Or something like that. To pile on top of what Alan has to say, what I mean to say is the seeking of publicity for the sake of publicity. And I say that as somebody who...
Rankings Ridiculousness Reaches a New High/Low
Posted on November 19, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Rating law schools by the number of "SuperLawyers" as alum is not a ranking of any kind. It is flat wrong for anyone to treat this seriously. It is a publicity stunt by a commercial enterprise....
Suspension For Abandoning Jailed Client
Posted on November 18, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today indefinitely suspended the license of [an] attorney...for abandoning the case of an incarcerated client he was appointed to represent in a postconviction appeal, then failing...
The Path To Immediate Disbarment
Posted on November 18, 2009The header from a decision issued today by the Maryland Court of Appeals: Immediate disbarment was required to protect the public from a respondent who (1) misappropriated clients' funds, (2) performed no services whatsoever on clients' behalf, (3) lied to...
Multiple Failures Raise Fitness To Practice Issue
Posted on November 18, 2009An attorney failed to attend four scheduled bankruptcy hearings. As a result, the matters were dismissed. The attorney then failed to attend the ensuring sanctions hearing. As a result, fines were imposed and the attorney was barred from practice before...
One Claim Survives
Posted on November 18, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department dismissed a legal malpractice action with prejudice but concluded that a contract claim against the law firm was adequately pleaded. The facts as to the malpractice claim: Plaintiff alleged that...
California Ethics Provisions "Moving Along"
Posted on November 18, 2009From the web page of the California State Bar: After nine years of work by its Rules Revision Commission, the State Bar Board of Governors has approved 35 revisions of the California Rules of Professional Conduct on issues ranging from...
Weight, Not Admissibility
Posted on November 18, 2009The North Dakota Supreme Court has held that allegations that a psychiatrist who testified as an expert witness violated ethical precepts went to the weight, rather than the admissibility, of the evidence. The testimony was offered in a proceeding that...
Charity Does Not Begin On the Bench
Posted on November 17, 2009A new judicial ethics opinion from Oklahoma: Question(s): May a judge who is president of a not for profit charitable corporation sign an application for a funding grant if done so in the capacity as president of the organization and...
Verdict First, Trial Later (Or Not At All)
Posted on November 17, 2009The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct has admonished a town cout justice for "serious administrative errors" in eleven traffic cases. IN three of the matters, he failed to advise defendants who had entered not guilty pleas of their...
Gag Order Violation Leads To Suspension
Posted on November 17, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today suspended the license of [a] Greenville attorney...for six months for deliberately violating a court order and then misrepresenting to the court his responsibility for that....
Everything You Wanted To Know About Bar Admission But Were Afraid To Ask
Posted on November 17, 2009I moderated a one-hour discussion about the bar admission process on November 11 at Georgetown Law. The one-hour session addressed character and fitness issues and strategies for passing the bar exam. Four recent graduates discuss their experiences and provide insights...
Ethics 101: That Which Is Normatively Advisable Is Not A Function Of Its Being Positively Possible
Posted on November 16, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Like cloning and karaoke. And now the invention of the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. Amazon has it on sale at a great price, though one that may not internalize all the societal costs of the product....
"Especially Egregious"
Posted on November 16, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals disbarred an attorney who had failed to participate in the disciplinary proceeding. The court found that there was substantial evidence to support the findings below of repeated and intentional misappropriation of entrusted funds...
Suspension Proposed For Prosecutor Who Defended
Posted on November 16, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended a suspension for a year and a day for misconduct involving a lawyer's representing criminal defendants in Orleans Parish while at the same time serving as an assistant district attorney in that Parish...
Shred Not
Posted on November 16, 2009The Tennssee Supreme Court has publicly censured an attorney. The attorney submitted a conditional guilty plea to misconduct that involved "instructing a client...to shred duplicate photocopies of account statements the client had illegally taken from an employer against [the lawyer's]...
Family Ties Create Appeareance Of Impropriety
Posted on November 15, 2009A criminal defendant objected to the appointment of a special prosecutor on grounds that the prosecutor had ties to the county prosecutor's office and to a person that the defendant had previously testified against in a criminal case. The appointed...
Upon Opening, It Gave Off a Nose of "Damp Forest Floor," But With Some Air It Was "Elderflower" With Just a Hint of "Marzipan"
Posted on November 15, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw If like me, you are a fan of, but overwhelmed by, Steve Bainbridge's knowledge of food and wine, there's a product for you. My wife ordered the WSJ Wine starter kit, and I have no idea...
Job Talks
Posted on November 15, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw [I posted this as a comment to the thread over at PrawfsBlawg that Dan Markel started for those going through the AALS recruitment process, and decided to repost it here. Over here, think of it as...
Does Popular Intellectualism Overlap With Academic Dilettantism? And What Does It Imply for the Future of Teaching Lawyers?
Posted on November 14, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I'm stealing some thunder because we get our Sunday supplements to the New York Times on Saturday morning, so I can't presently link to the online version of the Book Review (do your best with the...
Modified Fee Agreement Upheld
Posted on November 14, 2009The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the grant of summary judgment to a law firm in a dispute over the modification of a fee agreement. The clients were injured when the stairs to their rooms at a resort collapsed. They entered...
New Data on BigLaw Contraction: Patterns of Winners and Losers
Posted on November 13, 2009[posted by Bill Henderson, cross-posted to ELS Blog] A careful analysis of the recently released National Law Journal 250 reveals some surprising trends. The NLJ reports that the nation's largest 250 firms (by lawyer headcount) shrank by 4%. Yet, when...
Post-Judgment Actions Lead To Disbarment
Posted on November 13, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals has disbarred an attorney who was a co-plaintiff (with his spouse) in a defamation action. The defendants countersued and secured a judgment for approximately $386,000. By 2007, the amount was around $431,000. The charges alleged...
Caperton V. Massey Decision After Remand
Posted on November 13, 2009The West Virginia Supreme Court has decided the Caperton v. Massey case on remand from the United States Supreme Court. The court's decision is linked here. The bottom line: For the reasons stated in the body of this opinion, we...
Inconceivable
Posted on November 13, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has imposed a suspension of a year and a day retroactive to an interim suspension in July 2007. The attorney was admitted in 1990 and had worked at Finley Kumble and later White & Case, where...
Outcome Measures and Regulatory Failure in Legal Education
Posted on November 12, 2009[Posted by Bill Henderson] Over the last few years, the topic of outcome (or output) measures has been a recurring theme at various association meetings and conferences surrounding legal education. Some of this discussion is motivated by Department of Education...
Unsupported CJA Fee Requests, and Overly-Sarky Sidley & Austin Brief
Posted on November 12, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Two recent posts from the Law of Criminal Defense Blog caught my eye and I share them with you below. (This is in addition to recommending Bill's nice and provocative post here this morning on outcomes...
Ohio Publishes Guide To Attorney-Client Relationship
Posted on November 12, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court; The Supreme Court of Ohio today released a publication that provides practical information about the lawyer-client relationship for Ohioans considering hiring an attorney. A joint project of the Supreme Court?s Clients?...
Mouth Of the Rat
Posted on November 12, 2009The Florida Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney who had previously been suspended for demonstrating a "complete disrespect for the [bar] disciplinary process." The disbarment was based on findings that he had held himself out as licensed to practice after...
Privilege Upheld
Posted on November 12, 2009A worker injured in a fall from a scissor lift retained a law firm to sue K-Mart, where the incident had taken place. The claims were lost in K-Mart's bankruptcy,allegedly due to the failure of the law firm to properly...
New Ethics Journal Release
Posted on November 11, 2009The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics latest volume (Fall 2009) has just hit the streets. The title of the volume is Symposium: Empirical Research on the Legal Profession: Insights From Theory and Practice. Included is an article co-authored by our....
The Bear Stearns Acquittals - A Causation Versus Blame View
Posted on November 11, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I've given talks now twice in the last two weeks, once to a group of faculty and students at the Brooklyn Law School, and once to the faculty at Suffolk, based on my article The Epistemology...
False Advertising Charge
Posted on November 11, 2009The North Carolina State Bar has filed a disciplinary complaint charging an attorney with misconduct in the wake of his purchase of a law practice that operated under the trade name of Traffic Ticket Restitution of North Carolina ("TRRNC"). The...
Disbarment Rather Than Disability
Posted on November 11, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who is presently incarcerated on charges of mortgage fraud. The court concluded that the attorney failed to establish a basis to remain suspended based on a claim of incapacity: In November 2006,...
Liu and Michelson Complete Latest Survey on Chinese Legal Profession
Posted on November 10, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Sida Liu (Wisco...
Fee Dispute Appeal Oral Argument
Posted on November 10, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments this Friday (November 13th) in a case described in a June 2008 report reprinted below from Law.com: In March, a D.C. Superior Court judge awarded Douglas Rosenthal, a former...
Interim Suspension Of Medical License Upheld
Posted on November 10, 2009The Vermont Supreme Court rejected contentions of a medical doctor that his license to practice had been improperly suspended by the Medical Practice Board while charges of unprofessional conduct are adjudicated. The allegations: On March 31, 2009, the State moved...
Reprimand For Embezzling Probate Judge
Posted on November 10, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court has reprimanded a former probate court judge basded on the following findings of fact: On or between April 19, 2007, and December 21, 2007, respondent embezzled public funds while working as a Newberry County Associate...
Ohio Changes Pro Hac Rules
Posted on November 10, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today announced the adoption of amendments governing out-of-state attorneys who want to appear temporarily in a proceeding in Ohio (pro hac vice). The amendments, which were...
Suspension En Masse
Posted on November 10, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department has issued an order suspending a significant number of attorneys (listed at the conclusion of the order) for failure to file the required biennial registration statement and to pay the...
Poulin on Criminal Conflicts of Interest: Too Close to the Prosecutor?
Posted on November 09, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Anne Bowen Poulin (Villanova) has posted this article to SSRN: Conflicts of Interest in Criminal Cases: Should the Prosecution Have a Duty to Disclose? It will be published in the American Criminal Law Review at Georgetown....
License Revoked For False Information On Judgeship Application
Posted on November 09, 2009From the web page of the Virginia State Bar: On October 20, 2009, the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board revoked [an attorney's] license to practice law. In consenting to the revocation, [the attorney] acknowledged that he provided false information on...
Sanctions For Baseless Litigation Affirmed
Posted on November 09, 2009The West Virginia Supreme Court affirmed a trial court order imposing Rule 11 sanctions against an attorney who had brought a civil action on behalf of two clients. The facts as recited in the court's opinion: This civil action was...
Identity Fraud Leads To Bar Charges
Posted on November 09, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed a complaint that alleges that an attorney had failed to consult with his client and falsely represented that the client had retained him. According to the allegations, the attorney was contacted by a person who...
Seminar Participation By Judges
Posted on November 09, 2009A recent opinion from the South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct concludes that a magistrate judge and a family court judge may not participate in a seminar concerning domestic violence. The facts: A magistrate judge and a...
Life After Bar Discipline
Posted on November 09, 2009From the web page of the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission: The Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission Executive Secretary Donald R. Lundberg will resign as head of the agency that investigates and prosecutes alleged attorney misconduct effective January 1, 2010...
Client Fraud And Duties Of Former Lawyer
Posted on November 09, 2009A recent opinion of the District of Columbia Bar's Legal Ethics Committee is summarized below by the Committee: A lawyer who drafted a brief and affidavit in reliance upon fraudulent factual misrepresentations made by a former client has no duty...
Love Child - A Review
Posted on November 09, 2009My daughter, Arielle (Columbia, M.F.A. anticipated, 2010), has this review of a two-man show at the New World Stages in New York. All I can say is that if she gives it this kind of rave, it must be good,...
Too Late To Sue
Posted on November 08, 2009A plaintiff couple who received a settlement of $829,500 as a share of the settlement of a federal qui tam action paid one-half of the settlement proceeds to the lawyers that had handled the matter pursuant to a contingent fee...
A Fun Read
Posted on November 08, 2009Jayanth Krishnan at Indiana (Bloomington) is expanding his ouevre of comparative legal profession studies with his latest on SSRN, The Joint Law Venture: A Pilot Study (here). As with his other work, this one's an interesting (and, yes, fun) read....
Operation Wrinkled Robe
Posted on November 07, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court has ordered the removal of an elected judge of a circuit court of appeal for willful misconduct in office. The judge had inherited a accident case involving a part-time deputy sheriff as plaintiff. The disputed issue...
Judge Suspended For Practicing Law
Posted on November 07, 2009The Arkansas Supreme Court declined to adopt a proposed removal of a circuit court judge by its Judicial Discipline and Disabilities Commission and suspended the judge through the end of his term of office in December 2010. The judge was...
Bumpy Road To Recovery
Posted on November 06, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended the readmission of a disbarred lawyer. The lawyer was conditionally admitted to practice in 2003 as a result of DUI charges. The conditions required compliance with a recovery contract supervised by the bar's Lawyer's...
Pardon Precludes Sex Offender Registration
Posted on November 06, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court has held that the Governor's unconditional pardon of a convicted sex offender operates to prevent the State from requiring the pardoned individual from registering as an offender. The court held, in a case of first impression,...
Disorganized Client, Admonished Attorney
Posted on November 06, 2009Not sure whether or not we previously posted this admonition from Vermont, but it does serve as a cautionary tale for taking on a matter outside of the attorneys area of competence. The facts: Respondent represented a large corporation, which...
New From South Carolina
Posted on November 06, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court has denied relief to Governor Mark Sanford and the Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives in an appeal over the confidentiality of an ethics probe. The court describes the procedural posture: On September...
Louis Menand on the Marketplace of Ideas
Posted on November 06, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I've just pre-ordered a copy of Louis Menand's new book The Marketplace of Ideas, part of the "Issues of our Time" series edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., based on the taste I got from the...
No Automatic Disbarment For Immigration Fraud
Posted on November 06, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department rejected the contention that a lawyer's conviction in federal court for conspiracy to commit immigration fraud should result in automatic disbarment. The court suspended the lawyer on an interim basis...
30 Days Lasts Nine Years
Posted on November 06, 2009The Indiana Supreme Court ordered the reinstatement of an attorney who had been suspended for 30 days with a requirement that he petition for reinstatement on June 9, 2000. The court found that the petitioner had satisfied the requirements for...
Failure To Supervise
Posted on November 05, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended a fully deferred suspension of one year and one day and two years probation in a case where trust accounts thefts were committed by the sanctioned lawyer's non-lawyer employee. The attorney had "failed...
Good Deeds Sanctioned
Posted on November 05, 2009Another judicial misconduct matter from Florida approves a stipulated public reprimand of a county judge. The allegations involved the judge's relationship with a convicted felon with substance abuse problems. The judge allegedly used her position to procure the felon an...
Judge Reprimanded For Ordering Arrest Of Victim
Posted on November 05, 2009The Florida Supreme Court has imposed a public reprimand of a county judge who found probable cause existed for a former husband's domestic battery charge. The judge had: ...ordered sua sponte for the former wife, who was present in court...
Unhelpful Help
Posted on November 05, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed and remanded a criminal conviction for sexual involvement with two fifteen-year-old victims. The court's syllabus: The sentencing judge's ex parte communication with the prosecutor, during which he suggested to the prosecutor what arguments to make...
To Represent, Advise And Serve
Posted on November 05, 2009The Indiana Supreme Court approved a conditional agreement for discipline in a matter involving a felony conviction (on plea of guilty) to one count of sexual battery. The parties had agreed to a suspension of at least two years beginning...
Bar Prosecutors Rebuked
Posted on November 04, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a proposed stipulation between an attorney and the Oklahoma Bar Association (the "OBA)" and imposed public reprimand and probation for one year. The court was sharply critical of the stipulation: The stipulations here do not...
No Radical Departure
Posted on November 04, 2009A Grievance Commission Panel of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar imposed a public reprimand for representation adverse to a former client. The lawyer [for clarity "Lawyer") "has extended family in the community in which he practices" (which...
Over 200 Suspended For Failure To Register In Ohio
Posted on November 04, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio has suspended the Ohio law license of 233 attorneys who failed to register with the Supreme Court for the biennium that began Sept. 1, 2009, and...
Complaint Against Prosecutor Revived
Posted on November 03, 2009The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board recently vacated a hearing panel's dismissal of a formal complaint filed against the Oakland County Prosecutor for statements to the media in connection with charges of criminal sexual conduct against a defendant...
The Cost Of Regulation
Posted on November 03, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: In Fiscal Year 2009, more than $7 million was dedicated to the attorney discipline process, to reimburse clients of dishonest attorneys, to assist organizations who provide legal services for the poor...
Spill Over
Posted on November 03, 2009A bar discipline matter reported in the current California Bar Journal: The State Bar Court found that..a former deputy district attorney in both San Joaquin and Santa Cruz counties, committed four acts of misconduct, including acts of moral turpitude and...
Unsullied Order
Posted on November 02, 2009The Wyoming Supreme Court summarily affirmed a district court's order of summary judgment against two appellants after striking the appeals briefs "due to Appellant's repeated use of disrespectful language against the district court, this Court, and others...
The Second Time Around
Posted on November 02, 2009The Review Department of the State Bar Court of California recently opined on the "progressive discipline" provision of the bar sanction standards. The attorney was admitted in 1976 and had been previously suspended for four months for making misrepresentations...
Waiting For Mr. Green
Posted on November 02, 2009The California Bar Journal reports on the following discipline case: [An attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on two years of probation and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect April 11,...
Bond Bribes Pleas Lead To Interim Suspension
Posted on November 02, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court has entered orders of interim suspension against two lawyers who pleaded guilty to charges that they had schemed to bribe a judge. This posting from the web page of the Office of the United States Attorney...
Securities Fraud Disbarment
Posted on November 02, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department held that a federal felony conviction for conspiracy to commit securities fraud triggered the automatic disbarment provisions of the law: A conviction of a federal felony does not trigger automatic...
Murderer Gets Good Title
Posted on November 02, 2009The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed a trial court determination that two criminal defense lawyers and their law firm did not engage in conversion by accepting fees for services rendered to a widow later convicted of the murder of her husband....
No Class
Posted on October 31, 2009An attorney was retained by two clients to bring a class action against Equitable Life. The attorney associated with two other law firms--the O'Quinn firm in Houston and Milberg Weiss in New York. The claims were settled without the knowledge...
Not Privileged But Work Product In Part
Posted on October 30, 2009The Iowa Supreme Court considered the application of attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine to an interview conducted by defense counsel in a medical malpractice action. Counsel represented a defendant doctor and his entity employer. The defendant doctor had referred...
No Stay
Posted on October 30, 2009An attorney was automatically disbarred by operation of a felony conviction by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department: The Departmental Disciplinary Committee seeks an order...striking respondent's name from the roll of attorneys as of the date...
Unauthorized Settlement Is Fraud On The Court
Posted on October 29, 2009The Nevada Supreme Court has held that a stipulated judgment must be vacated in a medical malpractice action against a hospital. The plaintiff family had retained an attorney. Unbeknownst to the client, the attorney settled the case for $160,000, forged...
Conviction In Scotland Leads To New York Disbarment
Posted on October 29, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department has disbarred an attorney who had been convicted on plea of guilty to embezzlement from clients. The conviction was in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Scotland and involved the theft of 130,000...
Claim That DA Conspired To Murder Draws Disbarment Recommendation
Posted on October 29, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended disbarment based on findings of misconduct in several matters. One set of charges involved the filing of an affidavit executed by the attorney's client, "a convicted felon with limited credibility...
A Family Affair
Posted on October 28, 2009One of the practice pointers I impart to students relates to the particular difficulties and potential errors in judgment that can arise from the representation of family and friends. To underscore the point comes a recent Massachusetts reprimand summarized on...
Prostrate Problems
Posted on October 27, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department has disbarred an attorney who, after a misconduct suspension, had failed to file the required affidavit and had continued to practice law. The attorney had sought to resign rather than...
"An Isolated Series Of Extremely Bad Choices"
Posted on October 27, 2009The Arizona Disciplinary Commission has determined that a short suspension (sought by the State Bar) was not appropriate in a matter in which the attorney had been convicted of leaving an accident scene after he struck a motorcylist while he...
Definite Suspension
Posted on October 27, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court imposed a nine month definite suspension based on the following findings: On December 26, 2008, respondent was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession within close proximity of a school,...
NITA on Skills Training
Posted on October 27, 2009We received the following press release from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy: * * * In response to ongoing changes in the legal profession and in an effort to provide new insight into the best ways to improve legal...
Illinois Bar Charges Abusive Behavior
Posted on October 27, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed a disciplinary complaint alleging a series of incidents involving the accused attorney. One set of alleged facts: On February 10, 2008, while in a public park in Morristown, New Jersey, Respondent, who is Caucasian, approached...
Attitude Problem
Posted on October 26, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended disbarment of an attorney who pled guilty to distribution of a controlled dangerous substance. The attorney was sentenced to three years hard labor in the criminal case but was able to appear at the...
No Rough-and-Tumble World
Posted on October 26, 2009A justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the imposition of a public reprimand of an attorney who represented a client in a contentious divorce proceeding: "[the client] suffers from bipolar and borderline personality disorders which are treated with...
Suspension For Third DUI
Posted on October 23, 2009An attorney who had a long history of alcohol abuse was suspended for six months by the Iowa Supreme Court for his third alcohol-related driving offense. The court noted that the alcohol problem had not been found to affect his...
30 Year Law School Reunion
Posted on October 23, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I'm attending my 30 year law school reunion (Stanford, '79) and coping. Several of us were standing in the courtyard of the law school, noting that it was pretty easy to spot our classmates: there is...
Gang-Related Misconduct
Posted on October 23, 2009The Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved a conditional admision of misconduct and imposed reciprocal discipline of a public censure based on the sanction of the California Supreme Court. The attorney had served in a District Attorney's Gang Protection team and...
Ethics Of Endorsement Of Judicial Candidates
Posted on October 22, 2009The web page of the Ohio Supreme Court notes: A recent advisory opinion from the Supreme Court of Ohio?s Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline advises judicial candidates to be specific when referencing a political party endorsement in person...
Computer Technician Discovers Pornography, Lawyer Convicted And Disbarred
Posted on October 22, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department has disbarred a New South Wales attorney convicted in Australia for possession of child pornography. The attorney has already been disbarred on consent by the New South Wales Court of....
Getting Reciprocal Discipline Right
Posted on October 22, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has rejected a recommendation of Bar Counsel and the Board on Professional Responsibility to increase a Massachusetts public reprimand to a 30 day suspension. The misconduct found in Massachusetts involved mishandling of a...
"Adult Gig" Craigslist Post Leads To False Statement Charges
Posted on October 21, 2009The Illinois Adminstrator has filed a disciplinary complaint alleging three counts of misconduct against an attorney. Two of the matters allege misconduct in immigration matters. The third relates to a Craigslist posting: In May 2009, Respondent was a sole practitioner...
Anonymous Bar Complaint Is "Troubling"
Posted on October 21, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has rejected a hearing committee's proposed suspension of an attorney and imposed a public reprimand. The attorney had filed two motions to recuse a judge and had asserted a variety of claims of personal bias...
More Than Doctor's Note Needed To Justify Stay Of Disciplinary Proceeding
Posted on October 21, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended disbarment based on an attorney's criminal conviction for conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The underlying misconduct: From September 1998 through October 1999, Respondent was a consultant specializing in mergers and acquisitions of publicly traded...
Do The Wrong Thing
Posted on October 21, 2009An attorney was suspended for six months with all but 30 days deferred by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The attorney had practiced while suspended for non-compliance with CLE obligations. He was retained on behalf of a criminal defendant by a...
Religious Legal Theory Symposium at Seton Hall
Posted on October 21, 2009?Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field? Seton Hall University School of Law Newark, New Jersey Thursday-Friday, November 12-13, 2009 Seton Hall Law School will host Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field, a conference to assess the...
The Crime and Death Scene Cleaning Business
Posted on October 20, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Every honest occupation is an honorable one, but you kind of wonder how people happen to get into some. I wonder about it when I see a commercial for the Orkin man. Do people grow up...
The Twenty Percent Rule
Posted on October 20, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals has held that a proffered expert witness in a medical malpractice case was properly prevented from testifying at trial "when the expert devoted annually more than 20 percent of his professional activities to activities that...
Charges Of Incompetence, Confidentiality Breach, Rejected
Posted on October 20, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee found no misconduct and has recommended dismissal of bar disciplinary charges brought against an attorney appointed to defend a death penalty case. The attorney's second chair in the case was granted leave to withdraw and the...
Federal Practice Not Unauthorized
Posted on October 20, 2009A Louisiana attorney was suspended for three years, with all but 18 months stayed, for misconduct in connection with class action litigation. He applied for reinstatement. The fighting issue in the reinstatement hearing was whether or not he had engaged...
Two Brothers, One Removed
Posted on October 20, 2009The New York Court of Appeals on review of the proposed removal of Supreme Court and New York City Civil Court justices (who are brothers) agreed with its Commission on Judicial Conduct that removal of one was appropriate but disagreed...
To Suspend Or Not To Suspend
Posted on October 19, 2009An attorney admitted to practice in 2002 filed suit in state court on behalf of a client who alleged that his employer had released his confidential medical records. The defendant had the suit removed to a federal court where the...
Misconduct Discovered By Client Review Of Court Web Page
Posted on October 19, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended a two-year suspension without automatic reinstatement of an attorney hired to defend a lawsuit. The client discovered the neglect through the court's web site: In September 2008, Kenyon [the client] discovered from the circuit...
Tennessee Bar Admission Change Proposed
Posted on October 19, 2009The Tennessee Supreme Court has called for comments on a proposed revision to its rules governing bar admission. If adopted, an applicant will no longer be required to aver that an intent to practice in Tennessee. The order and propored...
Time To Suspend
Posted on October 19, 2009An attorney had pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business was suspended by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judiicial Department based on the plea. The court summarized the factual basis for the plea: On December...
Block Quotes
Posted on October 17, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I had to re-read some of my early law review articles (well, relatively speaking, since I only started writing them in 2005). They reminded me of some valid but painful criticism I got from an anonymous...
Don't Bounce a Check To The Bar
Posted on October 16, 2009An attorney who had attended required CLE but bounced the payment check was found to have engaged in unauthorized practice while suspended. He had moved four times and denied receiving notice of his suspension. Eventually, he made the payment and...
New AALS Section Newsletter Is Out, Provides Many Resources on PR
Posted on October 16, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Here is the hot-off-presses Newsletter of the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility. Thanks are owed again to the generosity of the AALS section officers, both for the time and effort it took to write such a...
Accessory After The Fact
Posted on October 16, 2009The web page of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility reports the suspension of an attorney convicted of accessory after the fact of an aggravated robbery. This post from December 2004 from Sheila Burke reports that the attorney "was caught...
Insufficient Evidence Of Mitigation
Posted on October 16, 2009An attorney admitted to practice in 1992 was suspended for three years by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. One matter involved an estate that was not difficult or complicated; the attorney's handling of the representation "evidence[d] a failure to attend to...
Suspended, Then Disbarred
Posted on October 16, 2009The Nebraska Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney who had repeatedly engaged in the unauthorized practice of law after two suspensions for non-payment of bar dues. The attorney had been reinstated and privately reprimanded for the unauthorized practice after reinstatement...
MySpace Post Admitted Over Objection
Posted on October 16, 2009Not strictly a legal profession case, but of possible interest is a decision from the Indiana Supreme Court affirming a conviction for the murder of a two-year old child. The defendant had testified in his own defense and was cross-examined...
Judge Suspended In Wake Of Criminal Charges
Posted on October 16, 2009From the web page of the Indiana Supreme Court: The Indiana Supreme Court has suspended Knox County Bicknell City Court Judge David Andrew Moreland, effective immediately. The Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications filed a ?Notice of Criminal Charges and Request...
Lubet on John Brown and the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the Harpers Ferry Raid
Posted on October 16, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Our friend, Steve Lubet (Northwestern) has a piece today in Salon marking the 150th anniversary of John Brown's pre-Civil War raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. You win today's prize, a Harrier jet,...
One bankruptcy judge's fight against incompetent lawyers
Posted on October 15, 2009You've got to love a judge who puts his expectations in clear, declarative sentences, and you can almost hear his teeth gritting as he writes this letter, which is now an official notice to lawyers practicing in his court (here)....
Judicial Records Exempt From Disclosure
Posted on October 15, 2009The Supreme Court of Washington has held that prior precedent compels the conclusion that the judiciary is not an "agency" and thus is exempt from the disclosure requirements of the state's public records act. The disclosures sought related to the...
Lying To Client Draws Suspension
Posted on October 15, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered a 60 day suspension followed by two years of unsupervised probation for conduct that the court described as "neglect of client matters, fabricating documents, and making false statements to conceal his neglect." (Mike Frisch)
Judge May Endorse Discovery Proclamation
Posted on October 15, 2009A judge may endorse the Sedona Conference Cooperation Proclamation without running afoul of ethics rules, according to a recent opinion of Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee. The inquiry: The inquiring judge seeks to endorse the Cooperation Proclamation, and authorize the...
No Pamphlets In Court
Posted on October 15, 2009A recent opinion from the South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct: FACTS A summary court judge has inquired as to the propriety of the Summary Court distributing of pamphlet regarding civil justice for crime victims. The pamphlet...
Huge Fine For Unauthorized Practice
Posted on October 14, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today imposed a civil penalty of $6,387,990 against two companies and their co-owners for engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, and issued an injunction permanently...
Stop!
Posted on October 14, 2009From the web page of the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court: In early August of this year, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County a civil complaint, therein asking...
Call for Papers: Northwestern U Holding Conference on Law of the Entrepreneur June 2010
Posted on October 14, 2009CALL FOR PAPERS SEARLE CENTER - THIRD ANNUAL RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM ON THE ECONOMICS AND LAW OF THE ENTREPRENEUR Northwestern School of Law -- Thursday, June 17th, 2010 Friday, June 18th, 2010 The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth...
Thanks To You
Posted on October 13, 2009And especially to Mike. And also to Jeff and Bill. (And to Nancy for her recent post on US News & WR rankings which got reported on yesterday at Legal Blog Watch, asking whether the tail is now wagging the...
A Light Sanction
Posted on October 13, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department imposed a reciprocal sanction of publc censure in a case where the attorney had been admonished with terms in Virginia. The misconduct involved the transfer of funds held in a...
Timely But Dismissed
Posted on September 30, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed the dismissal of a number of related claims of legal malpractice but disagreed with the trial court's determination that the claims against firms and individual attorneys were time-barred: Although...
Commingling Roles Draws Suspension
Posted on September 30, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court has imposed a one-year suspension of an attorney in connection with his misuse of funds in a spendthrift trust that the attorney set up. The key legal conclusion: Vis-a-vis the Kulp Trust respondent acted in a...
Legal Tsunami
Posted on September 30, 2009An Illinois Hearing Board has recommended that an attorney be disbarred for conduct described in these findings: The evidence, along with the admitted allegations, established that during the period from May 2003 through July 2005, Respondent was the principal and...
Lipshaw Creates Firestorm By Talking About Religion and Brian Leiter
Posted on September 30, 2009Two subjects that, Miss Manners said, should never be the talk at a formal dinner. Anyway, Jeff's SSRN piece analyzing Leiter's conception of religion has become "recommended reading" by Larry Solum on the Legal Theory Blog, and is number one...
How FEMA Trailer Lawsuits Are Briefcases On "Deal Or No Deal"
Posted on September 30, 2009Posted by Alan Childress I assume that most lawyers, like me, find Deal Or No Deal unwatchable. One of the many reasons is that contestants use a decisionmaking process akin to clients, rather than "thinking like lawyers." Lawyers would never...
Lend to Family...Really?: A Critique of Some Weird Financial Advice and an Aristotelian Lesson
Posted on September 29, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Somebody had ripped my gym's Time, the one with Glenn Beck on the cover, to shreds, so I was reduced to reading the October 2009 edition of Money or this month's edition of Club Management. I...
Justice As Character Witness
Posted on September 29, 2009From the online edition of the Detroit News: A Michigan Supreme Court justice may be called as a defense witness on behalf of a retired Wayne County judge accused along with an assistant prosecutor and two police officers of allowing...
Hot Air Leads To Proposed Disbarment
Posted on September 29, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended disbarment of an attorney who was retained to resolve a tax matter. The client sold balloons at New York county fairs and was charged with failure to pay state taxes. The attorney failed...
One Final Hurdle
Posted on September 29, 2009The Georgia Supreme Court held yesterday that fitness for readmission was established of an attorney who had voluntarily surrendered his license in 1989. He had pled guilty to charges of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He was pardoned...
Ohio Supreme Court Proposes Rule Changes For Felon-Applicants
Posted on September 28, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio will accept public comment until Oct. 21 on a proposed rule change to expand mandatory Supreme Court review of the character, fitness and moral qualifications of...
Electronic Filing Policy Violation Draws Reprimand
Posted on September 28, 2009A Michigan attorney was reprimanded for a Rule 1.1(b) violation (inadequate preparation under the circumstances). According to the order of the Attorney Discipline Board, he had "failed to follow the federal court's electronic filing policy when he submitted a document...
Suspension Imposed
Posted on September 28, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court rejected a public reprimand as proposed by its Board on Professional Responsibility and imposed a suspension of three months followed by probation for one year. The court concluded that the misconduct, which involved concurrent conflicts of...
Second Bite Allowed
Posted on September 28, 2009In another interesting decision from Georgia involving reciprocal discipline, the Supreme Court dismissed as unproven a matter in which the attorney had entered a conditional plea to a public reprimand in Florida. The attorney had entered the conditional plea after...
Lipshaw on Leiter on Religion, and a Little More
Posted on September 27, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I suppose it's appropriate to conclude the Ten Days of Awe of the Jewish calendar by tying up, on the eve of Yom Kippur, a loose end I started to unravel when I was sitting here...
No Forwarding Address
Posted on September 25, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who had "engaged in a bond trading program wherein investment funds were to be maintained in an offshore account and used as collateral by foreign investors engaged in day trading." The attorney had...
Permanent Disbarment For Fen-Phen Conviction
Posted on September 25, 2009The Mississippi Supreme Court has permanently disbarred an attorney convicted of conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud. The attorney had been the head of his law firm's mass torts section. He had been involved in fee-splitting and referral-fee arrangements to...
Convicted Lawyer Seeks New Trial Based On Internet Post
Posted on September 24, 2009The web page of the Pennsylvania bar disciplinary system reports the interim suspension of an attorney based on a criminal conviction. The Chester County Daily Local News has some details about the underlying conviction and post-conviction contentions: The West Chester...
D.C. Flat Fee Decision
Posted on September 24, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has held that a flat fee paid to a lawyer remains the property of the client until it is earned, unless the client gives informed consent that permits the lawyer to take the...
No Reinstatement For Operation Greylord Defendant
Posted on September 24, 2009The IIlinois Review Board has agreed with a hearing panel and has recommended that a petition for reinstastement be denied. The attorney was convicted in Operation Greylord and had served a six-year prison term. He had consented to disbarment. The...
Retainer Agreement Granting Settlement Authority To Lawyer Unethical
Posted on September 23, 2009A unanimous Missouri Supreme Court has imposed a stayed suspension and probation for one year in a case involving a fee agreement "purporting to give [the lawyer] sole authority to settle claims, with or without [the client's] consent." The agreement...
Parking In Parker
Posted on September 23, 2009The Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved a conditional admission of misconduct and suspended an attorney for two years. The attorney had pled guilty to a misdemeanor of possession of a forged instrument. The instrument was a parking easement to the...
Law Professor Risks Career To Blog About Jury Duty
Posted on September 23, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Not really. But given the rash of recent bar disciplines on lawyer-bloggers and law prof-bloggers who revealed too much about jury duty and the like, on which Mike Frisch became the Deep Throat of the New...
Judge Charged With Neglect And Nepotism
Posted on September 23, 2009An elected Tennessee general sessions court judge who has served since 1998 has been charged with neglect of duties and other misconduct by the disciplinary counsel for the Court of the Judiciary. The charges (filed earlier this week) allege that...
Neglect Of Bankruptcy Clients Leads To Suspension
Posted on September 23, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today indefinitely suspended the law license of [a] Canton attorney... for multiple acts of professional misconduct in his handling of bankruptcy cases on behalf of several...
No Joint & Several Liability In Louisiana May Haunt Victims of Chinese Drywall
Posted on September 23, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Not a legal ethics story, admittedly, but since you can't spell blogger without ego or bore, I am linking a story in The Times Picayune in which I am quoted on how tort reform will dehance...
"Struck Off"
Posted on September 22, 2009A very interesting post from the Austrailian Professional Liability Blog in June links to an order imposing removal from the roll of legal practitioners of an attorney who had represented a client charged with drug smugling in Indonesia. The attorney...
The Paramour Provision
Posted on September 22, 2009Not a legal profession case but of possible interest is a decision of the Tennessee Court of Appeals in post-divorce proceedings reversing a trial court decision that had required inclusion of a "paramour provision." The provision precluded overnight stays by...
Univ. of Akron Hosts Symposium on Legal Ethics Oct. 8-9, 2009
Posted on September 22, 2009Posted by Alan Childress The Conference themes are ?Lawyers Beyond Borders? and ?Practicing Law in the Electronic Age.? The keynote speaker is Steve Gillers of NYU. University of Akron School of Law's Miller-Becker Institute for Professional Responsibility [with co-sponsorship from...
Open Season On Client File
Posted on September 22, 2009A defendant under sentence of death filed a petition for post-conviction relief that included "allegations...so broad as to encompass effectively the entire scope of trial counsel's obligation's in [his] defense. Trial counsel met with attorneys of the Attorney General's Office...
Censure Proposed For Conditional Admission Violation
Posted on September 21, 2009An attorney was conditionally admitted to practice in Arizona in September of 2008. The conditions required her to abstain from alcohol. Prior to admission, the attorney had a 2006 DUI conviction and a juvenile record for letting underage people drink...
Husson University Seeks Permission For Law Grads To Sit For Bar
Posted on September 21, 2009The Maine Supreme Judicial Court recently announced a hearing on the application of Husson University to permit its juris doctor graduates to sit for the bar: On September 1, 2009, Husson University filed an application for an order establishing that...
Judge On the Move
Posted on September 21, 2009The Idaho Supreme Court has held that an elected district judge must establish a residence in the county where he sits within 21 days and file a confirming affidavit. The Idaho Judicial Council determined that the judge had not established...
Complex Conflicts Lead To Suspension
Posted on September 21, 2009The New Hampshire Supreme Court imposed a two-year suspension of an attorney who was found to have engaged in a complex series of conflicts of interest the attorney had represented a client in connection with disputes involving the client's mother....
Ticket Upgrades And Judicial Ethics
Posted on September 20, 2009A recent opinion from Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee: FACTS The inquiring judge asks for an opinion interpreting Canons 5D(5)(e) and 5D(5)(h), relating to tickets to sporting events. An apparent hockey fan, the inquiring judge is a season ticket holder...
Rosh Hashanah Musings on Law and Justice
Posted on September 19, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Once again, I violate the tradition by celebrating the Jewish New Year not in a community (which when I was a member of a conservative congregation in Indianapolis never failed to cheese me off by talking...
Liturgy, Heresy, and Rawls: A Yom Kippur Meditation
Posted on September 19, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw (practicing without a license). I'm not in synagogue. I have come to the point in my life where I pick and choose my spots. Last night, the Touro Synagogue in New Orleans had a substantial attendance...
Hofstra Hosts Oct 18-20 Conference on Ethics of Government Lawyers
Posted on September 19, 2009On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, October 18 ? 20, 2009, Hofstra Law will host ?Power, Politics & Public Service: The Legal Ethics of Lawyers in Government.? The conference will focus on the most important regulatory and cultural reforms regarding the...
Sexting Conviction Upheld
Posted on September 18, 2009The Iowa Supreme Court has affirmed a criminal conviction for distribution of obscene material to a minor. The case involved an 18 year old who had sent a photograph of his erect penis to a 14 year old female. The...
Missiles and Judgment
Posted on September 18, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I suppose it's timely that President Obama has today made a bold and both criticized and supported decision about missiles. Quite coincidentally, I started watching last night a 1974 made-for-TV docudrama - "The Missiles of October"...
Quick-N-Easy--Not!
Posted on September 18, 2009The Mississippi Supreme Court has imposed a public reprimand of a judge for his failure to render a decision in a timely manner. Noteworthy is the fact that the litigant's who filed a summary judgment motion was not pro,ptly decided...
Quid Pro Quo
Posted on September 17, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court imposed a six-month suspension without pay of an elected district court judge. The judge was represented by an attorney in connection with his divorce. He had incurred and owed the lawyer's firm almost $100,000. Over a...
Client Abandoned, Attorney Suspended
Posted on September 17, 2009A report of bar discipline from the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Court adopted findings by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline that [the attorney] violated multiple provisions of the Code of Professional Responsibility by...
Exploitation
Posted on September 17, 2009In a mortgage foreclosure action, the New York Court of Appeals has held that the defendant had sufficiently alleged that the plaintiff (her attorney and paramour) had exploited a fiduciary relationship and secured through fraud an arrangement where he was...
For The Benefit Of Consumers
Posted on September 16, 2009An ethics opinion from North Carolina concludes that a lawyer or law firm may include information about prior results on a web page: The consumer of legal services benefits from the dissemination of accurate information in choosing legal representation...
Suing Lender After Default Deemed Frivolous
Posted on September 16, 2009A Massachusetts attorney who had defaulted on Law Access Loan Program loans that were guaranteed by The Educational Resources Institute ("TERI"), was sued by TERI, which obtained a default judgment The attorney sought to set the judgment aside on grounds...
Reciprocal And Sensible
Posted on September 15, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court imposed a reciprocal 30 day suspension on an attorney suspended for that period of time in Arizona. The court reviewed the facts facts found in the original disciplining jurisdiction: The following facts are taken from documents...
No Interim Suspension On Email Charges
Posted on September 14, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court denied a request for an interim suspension of an attorney. WDSU.com reported last month: [The attorney] is at the center of one of the e-mail controversies at City Hall. She was brought before the disciplinary committee...
"I'm A Street Guy" Or Save The Raspberries
Posted on September 14, 2009The New Jersey Supreme Court imposed a public reprimand based on a presentment of the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct that set forth the misconduct of a municipal court judge handling an video arraignment for a series of non-moving traffic...
LPB Credited With Breaking Story - New York Times Front Page Article
Posted on September 13, 2009Kudos to Mike Frisch, whose post on disciplinary proceedings arising out of a lawyer's blogging activity provoked a front page story in the New York Times today. [Jeff Lipshaw]
Bertrand Russell on Throwing Away a Garbage Can
Posted on September 13, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw While Mike Frisch is off making national news and Bill Henderson is laying bare the problems of the profession and the academy, I'm pondering replacing my garbage cans (Sunday is garbage take-out evening here in Neighborhood...
Authority, Lawyering, and the Solitude of Judgment - and God!
Posted on September 12, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I wrote a short essay on this topic but I haven't posted it on SSRN because I've submitted it to a peer-reviewed journal, and they sometimes have funny rules on what constitutes "prior publication." (Although I'm...
Judge, Then Counsel
Posted on September 11, 2009The Kansas Supreme Court concluded that an attorney representing a client convicted of first degree murder had labored under a conflict of interest as a result of his earlier service as a judge pro tempore in the very same case:...
Agreed Sanction Questioned
Posted on September 11, 2009An attorney who had been convicted of felonies involving dealing and possessing controlled substances was sentenced to a six-year prison sentence. The attorney was suspended in July 2008 as a result of the conviction. The Indiana Supreme Court approved an...
Funding Opportunity for Litigation Research
Posted on September 11, 2009[Posted by Bill Henderson} The ABA Section of Litigation invites applications to The Litigation Research Fund which makes individual awards of $5,000 to support original and practical scholarly work that significantly advances the understanding of civil litigation in the United...
Face The Music, Not The Spectators
Posted on September 11, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has ordered the interim suspension of an attorney who was suspended for 90 days without automatic reinstatement by the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The attorney was an...
Pay-For-Play
Posted on September 10, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court accepted the consent revocation of a lawyer convicted of wire fraud. The lawyer had been a senior managing director of Bear Stearns. The court recites the underlying facts: The facts from the indictment are complicated and...
One Claim Survives
Posted on September 10, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed "in large part" the grant of summary judgment against a former programmer/systems analyst for Covington & Burling who sued for failure to reasonably accomodate her medical condition, hostile work environment, and termination...
Blogging Lawyer Charged with Confidentiality Violations
Posted on September 09, 2009The Illinois Administrator has just filed and published charges against an attorneythat allege, in part, improper disclosure of confidential client information on a blog. The complaint alleges: At all times alleged in this complaint, Respondent was an assistant public defender...
No Buyers Remorse
Posted on September 09, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals reinstated an attorney from suspension in 2007. The reinstatement was immediately challenged by a member of the Maryland Bar based on allegations made against the attorney in a federal civil matter. The attorney had disclosed...
Tier 4 Law Grads Aren't Spoiled
Posted on September 09, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw (HT Paul Caron) I happened to be chatting with one of Suffolk's top students - she was telling me how hard my Agency, Partnership, and LLC last spring was, heh heh (but the grading was fair,...
Disturbing The Peace
Posted on September 09, 2009More charges from the Illinois Administrator involve incidents of alleged breaches of the peace. The complaint contends that: In 2008, [K. W.] was a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service. Her route included Respondent?s home in Chester, Illinois...
Fargo Part Two
Posted on September 08, 2009An attorney was suspended for two years by the North Dakota Supreme Court based on the following instances of non practice-related misconduct: [The attorney] was convicted in Fargo Municipal Court of two misdemeanors involving theft. The items taken were a...
Technology Report: Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Posted on September 08, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I installed the new version of the Mac operating system, OSX 10.6, or Snow Leopard, last Friday. It's advertised as being mainly an improvement under the hood, so the changes aren't apparent to mere users like...
Self-Report Mitigates Sanction
Posted on September 07, 2009An attorney who had devoted substantial effort to an appeal brief was unable to submit the brief in a timely manner. After five extensions and a court order directing that no further extensions be granted, the attorney decided to falsely...
Divorce Was Better Option
Posted on September 07, 2009A recent disciplinary sanction reported on the web page of the Texas State Bar: On August 18, 2009 the Board of Disciplinary Appeals signed a final judgment disbarring [a] Searcy, Arkansas attorney... On June 25, 2008 the Board signed an...
Ready, Aim, Fire
Posted on September 07, 2009The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has issued an opinion in response to a judge's inquiry whether membership in a local gun club to use its firing range where membership in the National Rifle Association is required contravenes rules of...
Oh, To Drive in Massachusetts Now That Fall Is Here
Posted on September 07, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw If you live in Detroit, you know what a "Michigan Left" is. (When you want to turn left onto a divided highway or boulevard, you actually turn right into the left hand lane of the direction...
Blogging, the Difference Between Talking and Writing, and How Blogging as Writing Supports Scholarship
Posted on September 05, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw One of the reasons I like blogging is that it forces me to write my thoughts instead of speaking my thoughts. I worry about e-mail, and instant messaging, and Tweet, because they all blur the distinction...
Lessons for Teachers from Being a Student
Posted on September 04, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw This wasn't my rationale for taking lessons in riding a horse this past summer, and continuing now that we are back in the Boston area, but what has occurred to me is the benefit to a...
Drawing the Right Lessions from the Bleak Entry-Level Legal Job Market
Posted on September 03, 2009[by Bill Henderson, co-posted to the ELS Blog] As the fall progresses, many law students and law school administers will be trying to assess the direction of three market trends: (1) the number or percentage of summer associates who receive...
Disabled Because I Say So
Posted on September 03, 2009The Montana Supreme Court granted a request by an attorney to be transferred to disability inactive status over the objection of the Commision on Practice that there was no disability. The court concluded that the pertinent rule required that any...
Too Vague To Sanction?
Posted on September 03, 2009An interesting (at least to me) bar discipline recommendation from the Illinois Review Board overturns several findings of a hearing board and prososes a one-year suspension for conversion and breach of fiduciary duty, among other things. The circumstances involved the...
The Second Time Around
Posted on September 03, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred a lawyer "for his cumulative conduct over more than ten years evincing (in Bar Counsel's summation) 'non-negligent misappropriation and dishonesty...' " and other misconduct. The court cites an earlier case involving the...
No Evidence Of Bias In Bar Proceedings
Posted on September 03, 2009The Oregon Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who had a record of prior discipline. Apparently, the lawyer had previously accused the Bar Counsel and the Bar's Executive Director of bias against him. Here, the court rejected the claims on the...
Prepare for the Bar at Harvard
Posted on September 02, 2009There was a poster for this on the subway this morning. I did more than a double take when I saw the unmistakable crimson VeRiTas logo. You can get Harvard on your resume for only $225 and in one day....
Charges Reduced, Discipline Imposed
Posted on September 02, 2009The web page of the California Bar Journal reports: [An attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on three years of probation with a 60-day actual suspension and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order...
Charges Of Overbilling, Telephone Harassment
Posted on September 02, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed discipilinary charges in two counts. the first count alleges overbilling for court-compensated representation of juveniles: Cook County compensates attorneys who participate in the program at set hourly "in court" and "out of court" rates...
CLE Obligations and Unauthorized Practice
Posted on September 02, 2009An attorney who had continued an active practice before state and federal courts after being placed on inactive status for failure to complete CLE obligations agreed to an 18 month suspension. The sanction was imposed pursuant to the agreement by...
The Rising Cost Of Private School
Posted on September 01, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed a complaint charging that an attorney had provided false information and phony tax returns to a private school in order to obtain tuition assistance that the child would not otherwise have been entitled to receive...
Of Pedagogical Epiphanies and the "On Call" List - Will the Deontological Prevail Over the Consequential in Class Participation?
Posted on September 01, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw As previously noted, I ditched the seating chart in favor of tent cards with students' names. I am also having classes recorded and posted as MP3s on TWEN. The quality of the discussion yesterday on a...
Extra! Extra!
Posted on September 01, 2009The latest edition of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics (Vol. XXII, No.3 Summer 2009) just hit the streets. The Current Developments 2009-2009 student notes cover a wide array of emerging ethics issues such as risks of online peer advice,...
Probation For False Statement To Police
Posted on September 01, 2009The latest edition of the California Bar Journal reports the following discipline: [An attorney] was suspended for two years, stayed, placed on two years of probation and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect...
Third Party Fiduciary Obligations
Posted on September 01, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio will accept public comment until Sept. 30 on a proposed rule change about lawyers? duty to safeguard client funds and property in which third persons claim...
Why Not Reciprocal?
Posted on September 01, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals disbarred an attorney convicted of felony immigration fraud. The attorney also was admitted in New York, where the Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department had imposed a one-year suspension. A dissent questions why reciprocal...
He That Lives By The Sword...
Posted on September 01, 2009A disciplinary summary from the web page of the California Bar Journal:[An attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on one year of probation with a 60-day actual suspension and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year....
Why You Want to Think Twice About Having Children
Posted on August 31, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Son James and I went to New York City this past weekend to see daughter Arielle's brilliant production of Tell It to Me Slowly in the NYC Fringe Festival. On the train home, James, snapped the...
Friends Like These
Posted on August 31, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court finding that a lawyer and complainant did not have an attorney-client relationship and imposed a public reprimand for mishandling of funds as a result of inadvertance and innocent clerical error. The...
Chutzpah
Posted on August 31, 2009The Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge has approved a conditional admission and imposed the agreed sanction of a suspension for a year and a day with conditions of reinstatement for the following misconduct: Respondent represented clients in immigration matters despite the...
Fudge Factor
Posted on August 28, 2009An attorney who came to the attention of disciplinary counsel as a result of a trust account check overdraft was suspended for 24 months by the Washington Supreme Court. According to the attorney, the first overdraft was an "oversight." The...
No Tort For Truth
Posted on August 28, 2009A tenured Spanish professor at Creighton University was the subject of a sexual harassment complaint filed by a junior colleague. The evidence consisted primarily of email exchanges between the two in Spanish and Catalan. The parties differed on the proper...
Neglect Draws Two-Year Suspension
Posted on August 28, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed findings of neglect of five client matters but rejected a proposed six-month suspension and imposed a suspension of two years. Departmental Disciplinary Counsel had argued for the greater sanction...
First Of Many?
Posted on August 28, 2009For those who have wondered whether any lawyer would be sanctioned for Bush era Department of Justice abuses, the answer is yes. The first (to my knowledge) such sanction is an informal admonition issued to department spokesman John A. Nowicki....
See You In 2017
Posted on August 28, 2009An attorney who was disbarred in 1997 and barred from seeking reinstatement for 20 years has sought reinstatement and filed pleadings attacking the order imposing discipline. The Florida Supreme Court has had enough. The court found him ineligible for reinstatement...
No Violation, No Reasoning
Posted on August 28, 2009A three-judge circuit court dismissed with prejudice bar charges brought against the chief of the capital crimes unit of the Virginia Office of the Attorney General. The ABA Journal had previously reported the charges: For years, the state attorney general's...
No Mitigation Without Causation
Posted on August 27, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a three-year suspension of an attorney based on findings of dishonest conduct. The lawyer made false statements of fact to a tribunal and failed to advise the tribunal of...
Whereabouts Unknown
Posted on August 27, 2009The web page of the Ohio Supreme Court reports on a case of permanent disbarment: The Supreme Court of Ohio today permanently revoked the law license of Middletown attorney Karan Marie Horan for multiple acts of professional misconduct including conversion...
Foreclosure Advice Is Unauthorized Practice
Posted on August 27, 2009A decision today from the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that Cincinnati-based Foreclosure Solutions L.L.C. and the company?s owner, Timothy A. Buckley engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by giving legal advice and negotiating...
Consent Suspension Approved
Posted on August 27, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has approved a consent disposition and imposed a 60-day suspension of an attorney who had "inaccurately represented his status at the law form where he was employed, made a false representation on behalf...
No Show, No Mitigation
Posted on August 26, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended the permanent disbarment of an attorney convicted of conspiracy to bribe a public official. The payment of $135,000 was made to an agent of the State of Louisiana in connection with the approval of...
Truly Inspiring
Posted on August 26, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended a three-year suspension retroactive to the attorney's 1997 interim suspension for a laundry list of ethical violations. The board found that the attorney's recovery from chemical addiction was "truly inspiring" and noted that...
Call for Papers for Jan. 2010 AALS Conference
Posted on August 26, 2009Call for Papers [to select a speaker] for the Program of the Section of Professional Responsibility at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 8, 2010, 10:30-12:15 TOPIC: The 2008 FATF Lawyer Guidance Submission Deadline: September 1, 2009:...
Advanced Legal Studies Programs at Suffolk Law - September 2009
Posted on August 26, 2009Suffolk University Law School's nonpareil Advanced Legal Studies program is offering the following three opportunities at the school (120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, conveniently located across the street from the Park Street T station) in September. You can call the...
Bar Charges For Domestic Abuse
Posted on August 26, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed disciplinary charges against an attorney alleging neglect of an estate matter and serarate instances of domestic battery against his wife and daughter. the incident involving the wife took place at El Taco Grande, where he...
Subpoena For Patient Records Upheld
Posted on August 25, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department held that the State Board for Professional Medical Conduct had sufficient evidence to issue a subpoena for a doctor's records of nine HIV patients. The court further concluded that steps...
Nonparticipation Equals Fitness
Posted on August 25, 2009The Indiana Supreme Court recently imposed a suspension of 120 days without automatic reinstatement in a case that reminds me of cases I handled as a bar prosecutor. The attorney accepted two family law matters shortly before undergoing heart surgery...
In The Spotlight
Posted on August 25, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court:In a decision announced today, the Supreme Court of Ohio imposed a two-year license suspension against [a] Dayton attorney...based on an incident in which [he] engaged in an armed standoff with Dayton...
Double Or Nothing
Posted on August 24, 2009A summary from the web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers: On March 4, 2009, the respondent...was disbarred by the Supreme Court of California. The respondent had been admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1983 and the California...
Attorneys Of Aboite
Posted on August 24, 2009Three Indiana lawyers from the Aboite township in Allen County, Indiana formed "Attorneys of Aboite, LLC" notwithstanding the fact that they had separate practices and were not a firm. The name was used in notices, documents, communications, telephone listings, ads,...
A Wide Array Of Fee-Related Misconduct
Posted on August 24, 2009The Indiana Supreme Court imposed a suspension of at least two years without automatic reinstatement in a matter "involving repeated violations of rules prohibiting improper fee arrangements, including the improper use of nonrefundable retainers, improper billing practices, failure to return...
Law Practice Technology
Posted on August 24, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw We don't endorse commercial products here (usually), and I'm sure I got this is a really a teaser so that the company, AbacusLaw, can sell law firm management software (they'd give the book away, I suspect,...
Suspension For Incompetent Representation
Posted on August 24, 2009An attorney who had failed to provide competent representation in a civil rights lawsuit was suspended for 60 days by the Nebraska Supreme Court. The section 1983 suit named the Nebraska Department of Corrections and 14 individual defendants. The attorney...
Ohio Outsourcing Opinion
Posted on August 24, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: Two recent advisory opinions from the Supreme Court of Ohio?s Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline offer guidance on outsourcing legal or support services and whether a newly appointed domestic...
Ditching the Seating Chart
Posted on August 23, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw First class blues are the order of the day across the law prof blawgosphere; we start tomorrow. I'm teaching the same class for the fourth semester in a row, and last spring I wrote the teachers'...
More from Paul Lippe on the Future of Law Schools
Posted on August 22, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Paul Lippe, who has been an agent provocateur (or thought leader, as they say) on the subject of legal education, has a follow up to his original Am Law Daily commentary to which our Bill Henderson...
Double Entendre Headlines
Posted on August 22, 2009I'm blogging up a storm here, and the fact that the first hurricane since we moved to Boston is on the way, I can blog about a storm. There are rip tide warnings out for the Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard,...
Ambition and Rankings: "We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us"
Posted on August 21, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I was reading the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal this morning, and the De Gustibus columnist, Eric Felten, waxes on about the USNWR ranking of universities and liberal arts colleges. I was struck by this observation...
Agreed Statement Insufficient To Impose Judicial Discipline
Posted on August 21, 2009The Mississippi Supreme Court remanded to its Commission on Judicial Performance a proposed public reprimand and 30 day suspension of a justice court judge. The charges involved "allegations that he improperly touched a justice court deputy clerk and used racially...
Jury Trial Right Not Waived
Posted on August 21, 2009A case summary from the web page of the Tennessee Court of Appeals: The dispositive issue on appeal pertains to a party?s fundamental and constitutional right to a jury trial guaranteed by Tenn. Const. art. I, § 6, and whether...
How Not to Retire and Teach - Litigation Approach
Posted on August 21, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Over at Conglomerate, good friend Usha Rodrigues has a post mulling over a lawsuit reported on by Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal - a Troy, Michigan lawyer by the name of Donald Dobkin filed...
Lawyer Voyeur Suspended
Posted on August 20, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today imposed an indefinite license suspension against [a]Cuyahoga Falls attorney...for engaging in illegal voyeuristic conduct that resulted in his conviction on multiple criminal counts including felony...
Serious Sanction Proposed For Prosecutorial Misconduct
Posted on August 20, 2009A District of Columbia hearing committee has filed its report in a high-profile bar discipline case against a former prosecutor. The National Law Journal reports: A former federal prosecutor in Washington was dishonest, interfered with the administration of justice and...
No Reason To Squeal
Posted on August 20, 2009The Washington Supreme Court affirmed findings of misconduct and imposed a six-month suspension of an attorney for a conflict of interest in representing both a mother and son (a high school friend) in a family dispute and (for the mother)...
Abandoned
Posted on August 19, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended a six-month suspension with three months deferred and one year of probation in a matter where the attorney had essentially abandoned a client in a personal injury matter. The attorney stipulated to the facts...
Job Opening: ABA Legal Reform Specialist (Kosovo)
Posted on August 19, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw From Annie Lively at the ABA, we have this posting of a job for the adventurous and idealistic: American Bar Association, Rule of Law Initiative-Kosovo, Legal Education Reform Specialist (6-12 months, Fall 2009) (Pristina/Mitrovica, Kosovo) The...
No Liability For Graduation Kegger That Turned Violent
Posted on August 18, 2009Not a Legal Profession case, but of possible interest is a decision yesterday from the Washington Court of Appeals Division 1. The court's holding: Should civil liability be imposed upon those who plan and furnish beer for a high school...
Former Client's Intentional Wrongdoing Bars Malpractice Action
Posted on August 18, 2009A case decided today by the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirms the grant of summary judgment to the defendant-lawyer in a legal malpractice case. the plaintiff in the malpractice case had made false claims that he had a valid...
Attention Ohio Lawyers
Posted on August 18, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio Office of Attorney Services issued a warning today about an Internet scam affecting Ohio lawyers. Multiple individual attorneys and law firms have contacted the Supreme Court...
ALI-ABA Offers Legal Ethics CLE via Web or Phone on August 27
Posted on August 18, 2009"Hot Topics in Legal Ethics 2009." Date: Thurs., Aug. 27, 2009, at 1:00-2:00 p.m. eastern time, for 1.0 or 1.2 hours of ethics credit. Topics include: recent decisions on conflicts of interest, screening, and disqualification (including Caperton v. Massey by...
What Clients Want
Posted on August 18, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended that disciplinary charges against a lawyer be dismissed. After a previous suspension, the lawyer confirmed with a district attorney that a criminal matter against his client be dismissed. The committee found that the interchange...
Failure To Pay Annual Dues Results In Unauthorized Practice, Suspension
Posted on August 17, 2009The web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers/Bar Counsel summarizes a recent disciplinary sanction: On June 19, 2009, the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County ordered that the respondent...be suspended from the practice of law for two months...
Is There a Doctor In The House?
Posted on August 17, 2009An interesting case from the Montana Supreme Court involved a medical malpractice action brought by a widow on behalf of her late husband's estate against a doctor and a clinic. The plaintiff's attorney delivered the closing argument as a first-person...
Useful Information
Posted on August 17, 2009The North Carolina State Bar has filed charges alleging that a law firm associate had, in four instances taken fees due to his firm for his personal use. The bar's web page is as informative concerning charges as any I've...
14th Annual LatCrit Conference is in D.C. Oct. 1-4, 2009, With SALT's Junior Faculty Program
Posted on August 17, 2009American University's law school is hosting this year's conference for LatCrit XIV and the LatCrit/SALT New Faculty Development Workshop; the schedule and preliminary program is here. The conference takes place in D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland. Registration and cheap hotel info...
Reinstatement Favored
Posted on August 17, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended that the Supreme Court reinstate an attorney who had been suspended for a year and a day. The misconduct involved knowingly assisting a judge (appropriately named Judge Green) in violating the regulation of...
Caution
Posted on August 14, 2009An Arkansas attorney was cautioned for filing a civil case in a California court. The attorney is not admitted in California. The pleading had the name of a California lawyer on it; unfortunately, that lawyer did not have an active...
Court Imposes Greater Sanction Than Board Had Recommended
Posted on August 14, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a proposed six-month suspension of the Disciplinary Board in favor of a one year and one day suspension that a dissenting board member had recommended. The attorney had entered practice in 1999 after 20 years...
Non-Cooperation Increases Sanction
Posted on August 14, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted a recommendation of its Disciplinary Board to suspend an attorney for a year and a day. The attorney had failed to perform legal services for two clients, converted an advance fee(which he eventially repaid), and...
Third-Party Liability Of Lawyer As Escrow Agent
Posted on August 14, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a court of appeals decision that reversed a trial court grant of summary judgment on behalf of an attorney who had been sued by a non-client for alleged violation of escrow obligations. The court...
Mitigating Factors
Posted on August 14, 2009An attorney who had engaged in misconduct that included misappropriation of entrusted funds was suspended for one year by the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department. The court looked to the following mitigating factors: In determining an...
Suspension For Chat Room Conversation
Posted on August 13, 2009An attorney who was admitted to practice in 2007 was suspended indefinitely with the right to seek reinstatement after one year as a result of a felony conviction for criminal solicitation of a minor over the internet. The offense will...
Tireless Efforts
Posted on August 13, 2009The Washington Post reports that a Maryland circuit court judge is under investigation on an (apparently admitted) charge that he let the air out of the tires of a car parked near the courthouse. The judge is quoted as saying...
Non-Identical Discipline
Posted on August 13, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals declined to impose disbarment in a reciprocal discipline matter from Maryland, in which that sanction was imposed. The court followed a recommendation from its Board on Professional Responsibility to suspend the lawyer for...
Conditional Admission
Posted on August 13, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department denied an application for admission of an attorney who was admitted on conditions in New Jersey. The applicant was admitted in New Jersey in January 2007 on conditions that he...
Permissible Fee-Sharing Agreement
Posted on August 12, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department affirmed a trial court damage award in a matter involving the alleged breach of a fee-sharing agreement between attorneys: "It has long been understood that in disputes among attorneys over...
Indiana Law Launches Center On Global Legal Profession
Posted on August 12, 2009Our own Bill Henderson is making news: Indiana University Maurer School of Law Dean Lauren Robel has announced the launch of the school's new Center on the Global Legal Profession. Based at IU Bloomington, the center will focus on the...
"Let No One Mistake..."
Posted on August 12, 2009An Oregon Trial Panel imposed a public reprimand on an attorney convicted of public indecency. The attorney had driven around a mall while masturbating. He was observed and reported by a mall employee and identified through security cameras. The panel...
No Regrets
Posted on August 12, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended a three-year suspension with the last 19 months stayed, followed by 24 months probation with required treatment for anger management based on its findings in connection with the following charges: Count I alleged that...
Allegations Sufficient To Sustain Malpractice Claim
Posted on August 11, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department concluded that a complaint alleging legal malpractice had been improperly dismissed by the trial court. The allegations related to a settlement in a divorce action. The court held: Here, not...
Board May Review Portions Of Credentialing File
Posted on August 11, 2009The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court remanded a case involving possible misconduct by a physician. The issue related to access to the physician's credentialing file, which the Board of Registration in Medicine had sought but the trial court had held was...
Lawyer Sanctioned For Misleading Internet Ad
Posted on August 11, 2009The web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers reports on a recent informal admonition. The identity of the attorney is not disclosed in such circumstances: ADMONITION NO. 09-12 CLASSIFICATION: Holding Out as a Specialist [Mass. R. Prof. C....
Serious Interference?
Posted on August 11, 2009The District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended an 18 month suspension with fitness in review of a hearing committee's findings in five consolidated complaints. The hearing committee had proposed a suspension of four months...
Disbarment For Unauthorized Practice While Suspended
Posted on August 10, 2009A Colorado attorney was disbarred for engaging in unauthorized practice in violation of an order of suspension. His claims that he did not understand that his actions in advising one client and drafting a document for another client were the...
Life's Goal
Posted on August 10, 2009A North Carolina attorney admitted to practice in 1997 has been charged in a complaint with misconduct that allegedly took place when he went to a county clerk's office to file motions. The complaint alleges that the attorney began to...
No Favorites
Posted on August 10, 2009The Tennessee Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has issued an opinion regarding situations that may arise when a trial court presides over a class action case in which the parties agree pursuant to the cy pres doctrine that a portion of...
Same Length Suspension As Reciprocal Discipline
Posted on August 07, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department has imposed a two-year suspension as reciprocal discipline as a result of that same suspension in Massachusetts. The court described the findings of misconduct of the Massachusetts court: In January...
Financial Assistance To Clients
Posted on August 07, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board found, contrary to a hearing committee's findings, that an attorney had engaged in commingling and two instances of conversion. As a result, the board rejected the proposed sanction of public censure and recommended a three-year...
Suspension Without Pay
Posted on August 07, 2009A Nebraska county judge was suspended for 120 days without pay for misconduct in three matters. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed findings that the judge had, in one matter, improperly involved himself in an ongoing criminal case against his nephew...
Five-Year Suspension
Posted on August 07, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a five-year suspension for the failure to promptly pay settlement proceeds in a wrongful death action and misappropriation of entrusted funds. The court considered the follwing in determining the...
Moral Turpitude On The Facts
Posted on August 06, 2009A District Of Columbia hearing committee has concluded that a conviction on plea of guilty to the crime of first degree assault involved moral turpitude on its facts. Disbarment is mandatory in D.C. for a moral turpitude conviction. A hearing...
Reasonable Remedial Measures
Posted on August 06, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court approved a proposed public censure of an attorney for misconduct in ongoing litigation. Unbeknownst to the attorney, his client had provided forged documents and testified falsely at a deposition. The attorney failed to act for three...
Advice on Engineering One's Career - Law Professor Edition
Posted on August 06, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw For the last month, I've been guest-blogging over at PrawfsBlawg, which I think has a slightly different demographic than we have over here. What follows is a cross-post (in large part) of a comment I made...
More Than A Bad Move
Posted on August 06, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court imposed an indefinite two year suspension with the right to reapply after 120 days subject to probation if reinstated. The attorney was retained as successor counsel in a deportation matter. He filed a so-called Lozada motion...
Permanent Office Not Required
Posted on August 06, 2009The Mississippi Supreme Court has amended its rules governing admission by reciprocity. An applicant is no longer required to certify that she intends to establish a "permanent office for the active practice of law" in Mississippi. The amended rule took...
Convictions Lead To Bar Charges
Posted on August 05, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed an amended complaint charging an attorney with misconduct as a result of two sets of criminal charges. The underlying circumstances of the first conviction are described as follows: On April 5, 2004, Respondent barricaded himself...
False Impression
Posted on August 05, 2009An interesting hearing committee report from Louisiana recommends that two lawyers be suspended for six months, all deferred, and that they attend a bar sponsored ethics seminar. The two lawyers shared office space and had jointly represented a criminal defendant...
Alcohol-Related Accidents Lead To Suspension
Posted on August 05, 2009An attorney who was involved in two alcohol-related traffic accidents is the subject of a proposed suspension of a year and a day, retroactive to the date of her interim suspension, pursuant to the recommendation of the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary...
No Joke
Posted on August 04, 2009A Nebraska attorney was suspended for 120 days for misconduct in connection with his representation of his paralegal (now associate) on charges of operating a motor vehicle without a valid registration and proper proof of insurance. The attorney wrote a...
Organ Donation Article's Title Makes One Blogger Lilly-Livered + Are You Missing and Declared Dead?
Posted on August 04, 2009Posted by Alan Childress The Lowering The Bar blog, in its post called Law Review Article Titles: Stop the Madness, groans at Brian Morris, Comment, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDNEYING ME!: The Fatal Problem of Severing Rights and Remedies From...
Law Firm Letterhead Should Not Be Used For Debt Collection Letter
Posted on August 04, 2009The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit yesterday issued an opinion that should serve as a warning to lawyers involved in debt collection: be careful what stationery you use. Here is a nice summary (with permission) from the...
Title Company Liable For Attorney Theft
Posted on August 04, 2009The New Jersey Appellate Division reversed a trial court determination and held that a title insurance company is liable to its insureds for defalcations by the closing attorney in a real estate transaction. A notice of disclaimer of an agency...
Court Clerk Suspended
Posted on August 04, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court has temporarily suspended the former Clerk of the Beaufort County Clerk of Court who has been indicted on charges of embezzlement of public funds. The Beaufort Tribune reports: According to the indictments [the former clerk]...
Larceny Charges Lead To Discipline
Posted on August 03, 2009A South Carolina Magistrate received a public reprimand based on the following findings of fact: On January 30, 2008, respondent was arrested and charged with petit larceny. The charge stemmed from the removal of a statue from the yard of...
Vicarious Malpractice Liability
Posted on August 03, 2009Also from the Ohio Supreme Court web page: ...the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a law firm as an entity does not engage in the practice of law and therefore cannot commit legal malpractice directly. The court also held...
Foreclosure Related Misconduct
Posted on August 03, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today suspended the law license of Hamilton attorney John T. Willard for one year, with the final six months of that term stayed, for professional misconduct...
No one, to my knowledge, has ever produced Shindler's LONG FORM List
Posted on August 03, 2009...I'm just saying. What is Liam Neeson trying to hide??? My father, who died two months ago today and will be missed greatly, never talked about World War II. He could not watch Saving Private Ryan. I was aware through...
Lawyer-Juror-Blogger Sanctioned In California
Posted on August 03, 2009From the California Bar Journal: [An attorney] was suspended for 18 months, stayed, placed on two years of probation with a 45-day actual suspension and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect Jan. 23,...
Judge Admonished
Posted on August 03, 2009A New York Family Court judge has been admonished for two instances of misconduct. One involved his attempts to force a victim of domestic violence to reveal her shelter address on threat of contempt. The judge became increasingly nasty and...
What's In A Name?
Posted on August 03, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended the permanent disbarment of an attorney found to have engaged in a number of rule viiolations including conversion. The attorney's last name is Tooke. (Mike Frisch)
Taunts Charged
Posted on August 02, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed ethics charges against two co-respondents accused of the following course of conduct towards the opposing party in a divorce case: On January 9, 2007, Respondents Muller and Walters filed their appearances on behalf of [the...
Inconsistent Testimony Shows Lack Of Remorse
Posted on July 28, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department rejected a proposed one-year suspension and suspended an attorney for three years. The attorney had been convicted of a misdemeanor serious crime involving falsification of business records in the second...
Lien Times
Posted on July 28, 2009The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided the following two questions in the affirmative: We consider in the present case, as a matter of first impression, the scope of the Massachusetts attorney's lien statute (lien statute), G.L. c. 221, § 50,...
Charges Filed Against Judges
Posted on July 28, 2009KTAR.com reports: A magisterial district judge in suburban Philadelphia is accused of reducing a fine her grandson got for underage drinking and screaming at a police officer. The state Judicial Conduct Board made the allegations Monday in a complaint about...
Tax Offense Leads To Suspension
Posted on July 28, 2009An attorney who had entered a guilty plea to one count of failure to file state income taxes was suspended for 90 days by the South Carolina Supreme Court. The court's reasoning: Respondent admits that by his conduct he has...
I've Got You Under My Skin
Posted on July 27, 2009A Three-Judge Panel in Virginia accepted and imposed an agreed 30 day suspension for misconduct in the defense of a first-degree murder case. The attorney had endorsed and filed a motion for permission to issue testimonial subpoenas to two attorneys....
Power Of Attorney
Posted on July 27, 2009A summary of a disciplinary matter from the web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers: On January 27, 2009, the respondent pled guilty in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to six felony counts...
Yes And No
Posted on July 27, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the reinstatement petition of one applicant and denied that of another. The court granted the petition of an attorney who had consented to disbarment in New York as a result of a fraudulent conveyance designed...
Habeas Corpus
Posted on July 24, 2009A man who was arrested for disturbing the peace in the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, Mississippi died of apparent suicide while in police custody. His body was held at a local mortuary because the county did not have a...
Heartaches By The Number, Troubles By The Score
Posted on July 24, 2009The Tennessee Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court determination regarding the estate of legendary country music songwriter Harlan Perry Howard, who was described in trial testimony as the "Irving Berlin of Country Music." The estate consisted primarily of...
Cover Up Worse Than Crime
Posted on July 24, 2009A recent decision from the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department demonstrates the worst possible way to deal with an instance of neglect. The charges and disposition are described by the court: Charge one alleges that the...
"Eminently Practical And Efficient"
Posted on July 24, 2009A Pennsylvania attorney attorney was suspended for failure to pay annual fess in 2002 and on disability in 2006. He petitioned for reinstatement based on his claim of rehabilitation from his disability. His prospects for reinstatement took a blow when...
Suspension For Undisclosed Revision To Agreement
Posted on July 23, 2009From the web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers comes the following summary of a recent matter: From April 2000 through March 29, 2002, the respondent was employed as the director of procurement for a company that provided...
Mediation Ethics
Posted on July 23, 2009The North Dakota Supreme Court has adopted a Code of Mediation Ethics and procedures for enforcement of its provisions. The code will be in effect as of August 1. (Mike Frisch)
No Cause Of Action For Unauthorized Practice Prior To Statute
Posted on July 23, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that it has exclusive jurisdiction over the unauthorized practice of law in this state, and held that there was no legal basis for a...
Pay Dr. D.
Posted on July 23, 2009While noting that the determination of sanction in a bar discipline matter is "not an exact science," the Wisconsin Supreme Court imposed a 90-day suspension and restitution in matter in which the attorney had failed to pay chiropractic bills. The...
Not Moving Forward
Posted on July 23, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio has suspended the law license of [an] attorney...for one year, with the final six months of that term stayed on conditions, for neglecting the case of...
Computer Related Misconduct
Posted on July 23, 2009A Tennessee lawyer received a public censure for misconduct that had taken place while she was an independant contractor working at a law firm on personal injury cases. Law firm management "discovered that [the attorney] had somehow obtained other employees'...
When In Doubt, Disclose
Posted on July 23, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals imposed a three year suspension of an attorney as reciprocal discipline for a suspension of that same length in Virginia. The misconduct involved a failure to disclose information in the Virginia bar admission...
Sotomayor's High Road, Writes Kelly Anders
Posted on July 22, 2009[Our occasional guest-poster Kelly Lynn Anders, associate dean for students at Washburn Law and author of The Organized Lawyer, wrote a version of this op-ed for the Missouri Lawyers Media (subscr reqd), and we reprint it here with permission. Thanks,...
Cautionary Tale But No Violation Found
Posted on July 22, 2009An interesting bar discipline matter from Louisiana involves charges of unauthorized practice against an attorney who was in good standing in New York but ineligible to practice in Louisiana due to a lapse in CLE obligations and non-payment of bar...
A Matter Of Autonomy
Posted on July 22, 2009A capital criminal conviction was reversed by the Delaware Supreme Court due to a conflict in trial strategy between the defendant and counsel. Counsel had offered incriminating evidence at the guilt/innocence phase of the trial and had argued that the...
No Diatribe
Posted on July 21, 2009The Alaska Supreme Court rejected an attorney's argument that a proposed suspension was too severe and imposed a three year suspension with two years stayed. The attorney had neglected the affairs of several clients. He contended that the proceedings before...
TaxProf SiteMeter Survey Ranks Blog As 30th or 27th, Up A Spot From Last Period
Posted on July 21, 2009A follow-up to this blog's ranking earlier this year of 31st (visitors) and 28th (page views), the latest TaxProf survey places the blog at 30th and 27th among U.S. law professor blogs. Due thanks, sincerely, to our readers and commenters...
If You Can't Say Something Nice...
Posted on July 21, 2009Posted by Mike Frisch An interesting post from my friend and former student Matthew Kaiser at The Kaiser Blog: Last week the Sixth Circuit decided a case with stunningly bad conduct by a defense lawyer. The case is United States...
Law Services Website Must Be Taken Down During Period Of Suspension
Posted on July 21, 2009A District Committee of the Virginia State Bar has imposed a public reprimand with terms of an attorney who had continued to advertise his legal services on his website after he had been suspended for six months. When confronted about...
The Power Of Bar Counsel
Posted on July 21, 2009An attorney was the subject of a bar investigation initiated as a result of an trust account overdraft. The attorney provided an explanation of the overdraft to Bar Counsel. Bar Counsel investigated the operation of the trust account and found...
Disbarment For Real Estate Fraud
Posted on July 21, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals has disbarred two attorneys as a result of "their involvement with a fraudulent, equity-stripping lease/buyback arrangement" for a husband and wife homeowners. One had conducted a closing where he utilized a false occupancy statement and...
Emotionally Frazzled
Posted on July 20, 2009The Arizona Disciplinary Commission approved a proposed 30 day suspension followed by two years probation in a matter where the attorney had falsely advised a judge in a contentious custody matter that he could not proceed to a hearing because...
Indiana Judge Admonished
Posted on July 20, 2009From the web page of the Indiana Supreme Court: The Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications has issued a Public Admonition against the Honorable Roger L. Huizenga, Walkerton Town Court in St. Joseph County. Supreme Court rules give the Commission the...
One Joint, Two Court Orders
Posted on July 20, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Fourth Judicial Department has imposed reciprocal discipline based on a one-year deferred suspension of the attorney in Tennessee. The misconduct involved a self-report of a 2006 incident in which the attorney had possessed...
Workshop on Teaching Legal Ethics: Save The Date Nov. 6-8, 2009
Posted on July 20, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Thanks to Clark Cunningham, professor in legal ethics at Georgia State University, we pass along the announcement below on a Fall 09 workshop in Georgia of interest to our readers. Note that the workshop is open...
One Bar Applicant Can Use Personal Computer, One May Not
Posted on July 19, 2009The web page of the Louisiana Supreme Court reports that the below-quoted order was entered on July 13: APPLICATION FOR PERMISSION TO TAKE THE BAR EXAMINATION WITH PERSONAL COMPUTER GRANTED: 2009-OB-1546 IN RE: [NAMED APPLICANT] VICTORY, J., would deny the...
Report Your Own Malpractice?
Posted on July 19, 2009From Practice Blawg: Ethical Duty to Report Your Own Malpractice - A Proposed Opinion The Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board has proposed the adoption of Opinion No. 21 [opens as PDF], which deals with a lawyer?s duty to report his...
Retired In Name Only
Posted on July 17, 2009The Kansas Supreme Court found that an attorney who had "retired" and sold his practice to another attorney had violated prohibitions against unauthorized practice and imposed disbarment. The key facts: Perhaps the best evidence against [the accused attorney] came from...
If You Call The Bar for Advice, Wait For The Answer
Posted on July 17, 2009The Maine Supreme Judicial Court dismissed an interlocutory appeal in an action brought by a corporation against its former president but commented on a claim of attorney-client privilege in its order. The former president had been convicted of violating federal...
Cash In Paper Bag Fee Leads To Disbarment
Posted on July 16, 2009An interesting case from the Washington Supreme Court concluded that disbarment was the appropriate sanction in a matter involving a felony conviction for willful failure to file a currency report. The attorney ("respondent") was asked by a (now former) lawyer...
Litigation Over Artwork Donation
Posted on July 16, 2009Not a legal profession case, but of possible interest, is a decision filed on July 14 by the Court of Appeals of Tennessee. At issue were the rights of three parties in a charitable gift to Fisk University of 101...
Referral Fee Not Unethical
Posted on July 16, 2009An attorney who joined a law firm had an agreement that the firm would pay him additional compensation for fees generated on matters he referred to the firm. He thereafter referred a case to the firm. When he left the...
A Conference Sponsored by the Center
Posted on July 16, 2009A Conference Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession Georgetown University Law Center March 22-23, 2010 Law firms have been affected to an unprecedented degree by the current economic downturn. Many have made deep cuts in...
Undercover UPL Investigations
Posted on July 15, 2009The Virginia State Bar is accepting comments on a proposed ethics opinion that considers the propriety of the use of undercover tactics by officials responsible for the regulation of unauthorized practice. The opinion is summarized as follows: This opinion addresses...
For Naught
Posted on July 14, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court accepted a consent disposition of a three year suspension in a matter in which the attorney pled guilty to felony mail fraud. The criminal case involved an FBI sting operation in which the agents set up...
Third Party Liability
Posted on July 14, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that a lawyer who had drafted a series of wills for his client that contravened a judgment in a prior divorce case may be liable to third party beneficiaries who did not benefit from...
Non-Cooperation Results In Greater Sanction
Posted on July 14, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court imposed a nine-month suspension in a bar discipline matter involving a series of ethics violations in a number of matters. Among the violations was the failure to pay a fee arbitration award to a client...
Gifts From Client Improper But Not Venal
Posted on July 14, 2009An Illinois hearing board has found that an attorney had breached fiduciary obligations in accepting a series of gifts from a now-deceased client with whom she had developed a close friendship. The hearing board, however, rejected the Administrator's proposed one-year...
Advice From Inactive Lawyer Draws Suspension
Posted on July 14, 2009Pennsylvania is a jurisdiction that takes a particularly dim view of the unauthorized practice of law by inactive attorneys. A case in point involves a consent suspension for six months approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The attorney had been...
No Violations In Billard Parlor Investment
Posted on July 13, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board agreed with a hearing committee that charges of ethics violations had not been proven. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel had appealed the proposed dismissal of charges that the attorney had violated the business transaction with...
Tickets To A Disbarment
Posted on July 13, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended permanant disbarment of a former judge of the Civil District Court of Orleans Parish. The judge had been convicted of conspiracy to commit public payroll fraud and claimed that the disciplinary system did...
Motion To Sever Bar Charges Properly Denied
Posted on July 13, 2009The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected a variety of procedural and substantive objections and suspended a lawyer admitted in 1990 for two years. The court summarized the contentions: In this direct appeal of a lawyer disciplinary proceeding involving three separate complaints,...
Power Of Attorney
Posted on July 13, 2009A petition for reinstatement of an attorney who had been suspended for a year and a day in 2006 was denied by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The "essence of [the] misconduct was a conflict of interest with her client," a...
The Importance Of Being Active
Posted on July 12, 2009From the California Bar Journal: [An attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on two years of probation with an actual 60-day suspension and he was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect Dec....
Reinstatement Recommended
Posted on July 09, 2009Notwithstanding the objections of the Administrator, an Illinois hearing board has recommended that a petition for reinstatement be granted. The attorney had been suspended in 2006 for a year and a day for a bizarre scheme to induce fellow members...
"The Provence Of Licensed Attorneys"
Posted on July 09, 2009The Florida Supreme Court denied the reinstatement petition of an attorney who had been suspended for two years in 2006 for negligent misappropriation. The court agreed with the Bar that the petitioner had not been in strict compliance with the...
Threats Draw Sanction
Posted on July 09, 2009A District Committee of the Virginia State Bar has imposed a public reprimand in a contested matter where an employee of the attorney had confided to her that she had never divorced her third husband before marrying husband number four....
Return To Sender
Posted on July 08, 2009In Hawaii, when the Supreme Court orders an attorney to surrender their law license, they literally mean that you are supposed to return the original. Hence, the following order: Upon consideration of J. Michael Dwyer's June 1, 2009 Letter to...
Public Information Promotes Public Protection
Posted on July 07, 2009Here's a nice new feature of the web page of the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board-- petitions for reinstatement to practice law are now posted on line. The petition has notice that persons interested in either supporting or opposing the application...
Well-Intentioned Neglect Results In Suspension
Posted on July 07, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department resolved a disagreement over the appropriate sanction by imposing a three month suspension in a matter involving two instances of client neglect. A hearing panel had recommended a six month...
OK To Serve
Posted on July 07, 2009The Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee of Florida has rendered an opinion on the following question: The Inquiring Judge?s synagogue has a committee comprised of several members of the synagogue that review applications submitted by prospective members who assert that they...
Probation Failures Lead To Disbarment
Posted on July 07, 2009The California State Bar court recently granted a motion to publish a 2007 decision alerting the Bar to the consequences of non-cooperation with the disciplinary process. The attorney has almost no California practice; rather, he practices in Washington State...
Malpractice Findings Do Not Bind Disciplining Court
Posted on July 07, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court imposed a 60 day suspension in a matter involving sloppy trust account administration and other misconduct: Here, eight of the alleged counts of misconduct involved sloppy and careless trust account violations. Accurate trust account records are...
Serious Allegations
Posted on July 07, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed a complaint based on an attorney's conviction after jury trial of felony aggravated driving under the influence and failure to report an accident involving death. The complaint alleges the following factual predicate of the conviction:...
Misconduct:The Movie
Posted on July 06, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended the permanent disbarment of a lawyer as a result of his federal conviction for bribery and conspiracy in connection with a program that received federal funds. The attorney was the director of the Louisiana...
Rule Violation By Disciplinary Counsel No Basis to Dismiss Misconduct Findings
Posted on July 06, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Fourth Judicial Department has censured an assistant district attorney who violated a court order that prohibited him from speaking to a testifying expert witness during a recess. He also had initially denied doing...
Both Sides Now
Posted on July 06, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended a six month suspension with two months deferred in a matter where an Orleans Parish Assistant District Attorney continued to represent criminal defendants in the Parish after taking his oath of office as a...
Improper Remarks No Basis For Reversal
Posted on July 06, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court found that a prosecutor had crossed the line into improper closing argument by mocking the defendant's testimony as "ridiculous," "cute," and a "sales pitch" but declined to find reversible plain error and affirmed a second degree...
Regret Is Not Enough
Posted on July 06, 2009An attorney who had failed to file a personal injury suit and allowed the statute of limitations to expire was suspended for five months. The Tennessee Supreme Court reviewed and affirmed the sanction, rejecting the attorney's appeal seeking a public...
"No Other Appropriate Sanction"
Posted on July 06, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals heaped praise on a hearing committee for its "meticulous findings and exlemplary analysis" and disbarred an attorney for a laundry list of seroius violations that included seeking to have his own mother declared...
Disclose, Disclose
Posted on July 06, 2009From the California Bar Journal: [An attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on two years of probation and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect Jan. 3, 2009. In 2005, [he] represented...
Suing The Dead
Posted on July 06, 2009An attempt to substitute a law firm for a deceased defendant was rejected by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department: In December 2006, just before the statute of limitations expired (CPLR 214[5]), plaintiff commenced this action...
No Boxes For You!
Posted on July 06, 2009An opinion from the South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct: RE: Propriety of a probate judge seeking donations of cardboard boxes in order to facilitate the Probate Court's move to a new facility. FACTS The Probate Court...
Threat From Prosecutor Draws Reprimand
Posted on July 02, 2009TwinCities.com reports: The Minnesota Supreme Court has publicly reprimanded Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom for discouraging a medical examiner from letting a co-worker to testify in a Washington County murder trial. Backstrom will pay a $900 fine...
Law School 4.0: Are Law Schools Relevant to the Future of Law?
Posted on July 02, 2009[posted by Bill Henderson, crossposted to ELS Blog] Paul Lippe, a well-known Silicon Valley GC and founder of Legal OnRamp (LOR), recently posted an essay on the Am Law Daily that essentially argues that law schools, at least in their...
New Illinois Ethics Rules
Posted on July 02, 2009The Illinois Supreme Court has issued a press release announcing that it has adopted new Rules of Professional Conduct effective January 1, 2010. Highlights in the new Rules include provisions setting forth ethical duties to prospective clients and a new...
No Writ But Governor Ordered To Appoint Judge
Posted on July 02, 2009A retiring Florida judge sought a writ of mandamus compelling Governor Crist to appoint his successor within 60 days from a list submitted by the Judicial Nominating Commission for the 5th Appellate District. The commission had submitted six names after...
Three Partners Suspended
Posted on July 02, 2009In a lengthy and interesting decision, the Louisiana Supreme Court suspended three law firm partners for six months with three months stayed. The firm had represented the complainant in complex commercial matters since 1985. In 1996, the firm and client...
"See Y'all Later"
Posted on July 02, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court has suspended a judge for 30 days, rejecting as insufficient the public censure proposed by its Judiciary Commission. The judge was found to have "exhibited improper temperment and demeanor, as well as impatience and discourtesy" in...
Boo to Billable Hours
Posted on July 01, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Appellate lawyer and author John Derrick has asked us to put in a link to his book Boo to Billable Hours: A Lawyer's Guide to Better Billing, the contents of which are available on his website...
Much Lesser Sanction
Posted on July 01, 2009In a case decided today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected proposed discipline of a lenghty suspension in favor of a 60-day sit down. the court explained its sanction decision as well as its analysis of the imposition of costs: The...
Decade Of Criminal Conduct Draws Disbarment
Posted on July 01, 2009From the California Bar Journal: LOEL HARRIS SEITEL [#192999], 42, of New York was disbarred Jan. 9, 2009, and was ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court. Seitel was sentenced to five years in prison...
Personnel, Not Policy
Posted on July 01, 2009The California Bar Journal has the following report: The State Bar Board of Governors declined last month to reappoint its chief trial counsel, Scott Drexel, but reconfirmed its support of the strong public protection measures that Drexel enforced. ?This was...
Power Of Attorney
Posted on July 01, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed disciplinary charges against an attorney alleging that he had notarized the signature of a client on a document granting power of attorney to her spouse that had not been signed in the attorney's presence. It...
Asserting Personal Knowledge
Posted on July 01, 2009The web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers reports on a public reprimand of a prosecutor: On November 13, 2003, a jury trial was commenced in Norfolk Superior Court in a first-degree murder case against two co-defendants. The...
No Disability Suspension
Posted on June 30, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department declined the implement the Departmental Disciplinary Committee's proposal to convert a suspension for failure to cooperate with a disciplinary investigation into a disability suspension...
Bad Ad
Posted on June 30, 2009From the web page of the Virginia State Bar: On June 8, 2009, a Virginia State Bar Fifth District, Section I, Subcommittee imposed a public reprimand with terms on [an attorney] for violating professional rules that govern responsibilities regarding nonlawyer...
Grease Is The Word
Posted on June 30, 2009An Arizona hearing officer rejected a number of ethics charges filed against an attorney by a former client and recommended an informal reprimand for failing to provide the client with a written retainer agreement. The rejected charges involved the following:...
"Stun Belt" Reversal
Posted on June 30, 2009The New York Court of Appeals has reversed a criminal conviction of a defendant charged with the murder by strangulation of a 14 year old victim. The trial court had ordered the defendant to wear a "stun belt" restraint during...
CLE-Related Judicial Misconduct
Posted on June 30, 2009A South Carolina magistrate judge was sanctioned for misconduct relaing to fulfilling his CLE obligations. The South Carolina Supreme Court described the misconduct as follows: In this judicial disciplinary case, respondent Magistrate Judge...admits altering a court order and a letter...
No Sanction For Judge
Posted on June 29, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed with a finding of its Judiciary Commission that a judge had violated the Code of Judicial Conduct but rejected the proposed public censure sanction because the "wrongdoing does not rise to the level of misconduct...
A Comment on Law School 4.0
Posted on June 29, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw An op-ed by Paul Lippe (no relation) at the Am Law Daily on what law schools ought to do to cure THE PROBLEM has gotten a fair amount of buzz in the blogosphere, including from our...
Drinks At Shanghi Red's Leads To Judge's Resignation
Posted on June 29, 2009WGRZ.com reports on a judicial misconduct matter: Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita says State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Makowski and local attorney Anne Adams conspired to try and make a DWI case against Adams go away. Last September, Makowski...
The End of an Era: the Bi-Modal Distribution for the Class of 2008
Posted on June 29, 2009[posted by Bill Henderson, crossposted to ELS Blog] NALP has just posted its entry-level starting salary for class of 2008--i.e., the lawyers who started their jobs just as Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros unraveled and the credit markets completely froze...
No Reciprocal Discipline
Posted on June 29, 2009Adhering to the reasoning of a recent opinion that we posted, the Georgia Supreme Court dismissed a reciprocal discipline matter involving the suspension of an attorney in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. The court...
Trucking To Suspension
Posted on June 29, 2009An attorney who engaged in multiple instances of driving under the influence exacerbated by flight from the scene and a false claim that his car was being driven by a stripper was suspended for three years by the Louisiana Supreme...
Louisiana Disbarment
Posted on June 29, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court Court disbarred and revoked the license of an attorney for misconduct in several matters. In one case the attorney made a false representation to a court in the course of representing her sister in a domestic...
Substantial Threat
Posted on June 29, 2009The North Dakota Supreme Court imposed a suspension pending the disposition of disciplinary proceedings in a case where the lawyer has been charged with, but not convicted of, criminal charges. The court describes the charges: The Application [for suspension] states...
Rehearing Denied
Posted on June 26, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals entered an order yesterday that denied a motion for rehearing or rehearing en banc in a case where the court had not imposed an interim suspension for a felony conviction. Bar Counsel had...
No Right To Rummage
Posted on June 26, 2009The New Jersey Appellate Court has issued a decision concerning an employee's rights with respect to emails sent to her attorney on a computer provided by the employer: ...we address whether workplace regulations converted an employee's emails with her attorney--...
Advertising Issue, Other Misconduct, Draws Suspension
Posted on June 26, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered a six-month suspension of an attorney for ethical violations in a number of matters. One case involved the attorney's submission of an expert's bill for payment by the State. The State paid the bill but...
Federal Law Preempts Unauthorized Practice Rules
Posted on June 26, 2009The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska ("Tribe") filed a motion to intervene in an appeal of a child custody matter involving two children who are members of the Tribe. The lower court had denied the motion because it was not signed...
Gross Misjudgment
Posted on June 26, 2009An attorney was suspended for five years by the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department for a number of ethical violations. He had, among other things, jointly represented a husband and wife in drafting a separation agreement...
No Ordinary Employee
Posted on June 25, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court imposed a public reprimand of an attorney for problems with the operation of his escrow account. The problems were discovered in the course of a random audit of the account by the bar. It was thus...
When Is Judicial Delay Sanctionable?
Posted on June 25, 2009A very interesting decision of the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct addresses the question of when delay in issuing decisions by a judicial officer constitutes a basis for discipline. The judge had transitioned from part-time with a law practice...
Upping The Ante Part Two
Posted on June 25, 2009The Ohio Supreme Court rejected discipline proposed by its Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Dispcipline and indefinitely suspended an attorney for neglect of several matters and failure to respond to a bar investigation. The attorney, who also is admitted...
A Friend In Need
Posted on June 25, 2009The New York Commission on Judicial Discipline closed a matter as a result of the resignation of a town court justice. The justice is barred from future judicial service. The non-lawyer justice had stipulated that he presided over a small...
Upping The Ante
Posted on June 25, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals imposed the substantially different discipline of a 30 day suspension in a reciprocal matter from Virginia. The attorney had made false statements in a certificate of service and in open court and misleading....
"An Isolated Series Of Bad Choices"
Posted on June 25, 2009An Arizona attorney who had been convicted of extreme DUI, leaving an accident scene and endangerment as a result of an accident with a motorcyclist was the subject of a bar discipline proceeding. A hearing officer's proposed dismissal of the...
No Clients, No Conflicts
Posted on June 24, 2009The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the recommendation of a hearing panel subcommittee (HPS) of the Lawyer Disciplinary Board to dismiss disciplinary charges that arose from a tragic car accident. Jonathan McRobie was charged with criminal offenses as...
"Without Credible Supporting Evidence"
Posted on June 24, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio has indefinitely suspended the law license of Cleveland attorney Merrie Maurine Frost for multiple disciplinary infractions arising from her filing of false and unsupported accusations of...
Client Is Trustee
Posted on June 24, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed a holding of the Court of Civil Appeals and held that a law firm had a lien on a counsel-fee award entered by the trial court to the former client in a divorce case. After...
Post-Caperton Judicial Education
Posted on June 23, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: An Indiana University law school professor will offer his perspectives on judicial disqualification and recusal issues ? including a recently decided U.S. Supreme Court recusal case ? at the closing session...
The Dangers Of Mediation
Posted on June 23, 2009A mediation conducted by a mediator employed by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service at the Hampton Inn in Beckley, West Virginia was abruptly interrupted when a 33 pound light fixture fell on the mediator's head, causing serious injuries. The...
Reinstatement Proposed For Attorney Disbarred For Child Enticement
Posted on June 23, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended the reinstatement of an attorney who was disbarred in 2003. The basis of the disbarment was a conviction in Wisconsin for a single count of child enticement. He had been engaged in an internet...
Operation Slither
Posted on June 22, 2009Not a legal profession case, but of possible interest is a decision isued last week by the Utah Supreme Court. The plaintiff is an amatuer herpetologist with an interest in rubber boa snakes (which are real, not made of rubber)....
Rapid Growth, Failure To Supervise, Results In Suspension
Posted on June 22, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has recommended a suspension of 30 days followed by probation for one year for an attorney in a matter that had originated in notification to the Bar of a series of trust account overdrafts. The lawyer...
Disbarment In Texas
Posted on June 22, 2009An attorney who was convicted on his guilty plea to possession of child pornography was disbarred by the Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals. The attorney had defaulted on the disciplinary charges. The board imposed the sanction in light of the...
New Rules For Ohio Judges
Posted on June 22, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today announced the adoption of several amendments to the Rules for the Government of the Judiciary (Rule II) that concern grievances filed against Supreme Court justices...
Classic Conflict Leads To Reprimand
Posted on June 22, 2009The web page of the Massachusetts Bar Counsel reports the following public reprimand for a classic conflict of interest in representing a driver and two injured passengers in a collision case: In the fall of 2005, the respondent was retained...
Arson Of Family Store Draws Interim Suspension
Posted on June 22, 2009After issuing a show cause order, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently imposed an interim suspension of a attorney convicted of arson endangering persons. The underlying conduct as reported by PennLive.com: An admitted arsonist has been sentenced to up to 23...
Reciprocal Discipline For Nurses
Posted on June 21, 2009The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected as premature a nurse's objections in a reciprocal discipline licensing proceeding. The opinion: In a reciprocal discipline proceeding, the Board of Registration in Nursing (board) indefinitely suspended Penelope Lankheim's license to practice as...
Lawyer and Financial Crisis Lessons from the Sieur de Champlain
Posted on June 20, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw My life partner now of thirty years, Alene, knows me too well. She just finished David Hackett Fischer's (left) massive biography, Champlain's Dream, and walked into the office to show me Fischer's last couple of pages,...
Reconventional Demand
Posted on June 20, 2009A lawyer withdrew from representing a client in litigation involving her ex-husband due to his personal relationship with the client (they are now married). The ex-husband filed a bar complaint against the lawyer. The lawyer retained an attorney (hereinafter "respondent")...
No Fees For Representing Yourself
Posted on June 19, 2009An attorney who had sued for inspection of public records and prevailed is not entitled to attorney fees for representing himself, according to a decision of the Oregon Court of Appeals: The ordinary meaning of "attorney fee," then, is the...
From Missouri To Kansas
Posted on June 19, 2009An attorney who had failed to respond to a series of bar complaints was disbarred by default in Missouri. The Kansas Supreme Court imposed an indefinite suspension as reciprocal discipline. The court found that a default in Missouri was a...
Not Even Close
Posted on June 19, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a three-year suspension as reciprocal discipline based on findings of misconduct in California. The court affirmed a referee's conclusion that the lawyer had not "come close" to establishing an...
The Sounds Of Suing
Posted on June 18, 2009A dismissed legal malpractice suit was reinstated by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department. The court held that the law in the area was sufficiently settled to sustain the claims of the former client: Plaintiffs allege...
Depression Does Not Explain Dishonesty
Posted on June 18, 2009An attorney who had violated ethics rules as alleged in 28 counts was suspended for nine months by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The suspension will be extended if the lawyer fails to submit an evaluation of mental health issues. The...
Thinking About the Financial Crisis - It's Scary When We Don't Know What We Don't Know
Posted on June 18, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw At the end of April, I attended a fascinating day-long symposium organized by fellow blogger Dave Hoffman and two of his colleagues at Temple, Jonathan Lipson and Peter Huang, on issues of complexity arising in the...
Flight To Bar Discipline
Posted on June 18, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended discipline based on the following admitted facts: On November 25, 2005, Respondent was on United Airlines flight number 1502 from Orlando, Florida to Washington D.C. At some point during the flight, Respondent engaged in...
Better To Be Negligent
Posted on June 18, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed a finding that a lawyer's misappropriation had been negligent rather than intentional and, as a result, imposed an indefinite suspension rather than disbarment. The court also affirmed findings of misconduct that stemmed from a...
Judge's Campaign Speech Draws Sanction, Dissents
Posted on June 18, 2009On motions for rehearing by a disciplined judge and its Commission on Judicial Performance, the Mississippi Supreme Court withdrew an earlier opinion and suspended the now-former judge from office for one year. The allegations involved a speech before constituents in...
Time Served
Posted on June 17, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court determined that an attorney's conviction for failure to file tax returns warranted professional discipline. The court held that the time since the attorney's interim suspension for the comviction was the appropriate measure of discipline and, in...
Law Student Career Options Program
Posted on June 17, 2009From the web page of the District of Columbia Bar: On June 25 the program ?Law Students, Know Thy Career Options!? will return to help aspiring attorneys determine their career paths. The program is jointly sponsored by the Asian Pacific...
Permanent Disbarment Proposed For Former CFO
Posted on June 17, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended that an attorney convicted of theft be permanently disbarred. The attorney was the chief financial officer of Kiko Foods, Inc. and had direct access to and control of the corporate bank accounts and...
Second Disbarment May Be Permanent
Posted on June 17, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended the permanent disbarment of a lawyer who had been disbarred in 1986 and readmitted in 1999. In addition to findings of ethical violations in a number of client-related matters, the board found that...
Admonition For Confidentiality Breach
Posted on June 16, 2009A recent admonition reported on the web page of the Massachusetts Bar Counsel; ADMONITION NO. 09-08 CLASSIFICATION: Improper Disclosure of Confidences of Lawyer?s or Firm?s former Client [Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.9(c)(1)] SUMMARY: The respondent began working for an asset...
Claims Dismissed
Posted on June 16, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed an order dismissing a number of claims against lawyers and a law firm: Plaintiff alleges fraud and fraudulent inducement against all defendants, breach of contract against the Weksler brothers,...
"Each Case Is Unique"
Posted on June 16, 2009The Illinois Supreme Court imposed a two-year suspension of an attorney on review of the Review Board's proposed six-month suspension. The attorney had engaged in a number of violations included neglect of an estate for 17 years. The court rejected...
Fee Simple
Posted on June 16, 2009From the web page of the North Carolina State Bar: The Grievance Committee reprimanded [a] Lexington lawyer...for filing a civil action against a former client before the Bar's fee dispute resolution process was completed, charging excessive fees, and charging for...
Misconduct Findings Vacated
Posted on June 16, 2009An attorney who was reprimanded for ethical violations in a divorce case appealed to the Utah Supreme Court. Although the court concluded that the review sought was a petition for extraordinary relief rather than an appeal, the court held that...
"I Am Not a Nice Guy"
Posted on June 16, 2009A summary of a recent Massachusetts bar discipline case: The respondent was suspended from the practice of law for a period of six months, with three months to serve and three months suspended for a two-year probationary period based on...
Court Considers Source Of Complaint As Mitigating Factor
Posted on June 15, 2009A New York attorney formed a corporation for the purpose of bidding on a HUD contract to provide closing agent services on the sales of previously foreclosed properties. The corporation consisted of himself and a non-lawyer, who owned a majority...
Random Audit Leads To Discipline
Posted on June 15, 2009In a matter that was initiated as a result of a random audit of an attorney's trust account, the Vermont Professional Conduct Board imposed a public reprimand of an attorney who kept a "positive balance" in his trust account. The...
More Reciprocal Discipline News
Posted on June 15, 2009An interesting day for reciprocal discipline fans. The National Organization of Bar Counsel has posted a recent decision summary: A lawyer may be subject to reciprocal discipline in a jurisdiction where that lawyer is not licensed. Carl M. Weideman, III,...
Like Ceaser's Wife
Posted on June 15, 2009The New Jersey Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct has recommended a public admonishment of a part-time municipal judge based on findings that the judge's law firm had made a series of four political contributions in the firm name. The judge...
No State Reciprocal Discipline For Federal Contempt
Posted on June 15, 2009The Georgia Supreme Court dismissed a reciprocal discipline action based on a finding in federal district court that the attorney had engaged in unauthorized practice. The district court found the lawyer in contempt and imposed a fine and fee forfeiture...
Reinstatement Roadmap
Posted on June 15, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the reinstatement of an attorney who had been suspended for two years in 2006.The misconduct, which involved misuse of entrusted funds, had been the product of his alcoholism. The principal issue in the reinstatement proceeding...
Serious Anger Management Issues
Posted on June 14, 2009After a defendant charged with assaulting a correctional officer had threatened his attorney, the judge determined that he had forfeited his right to counsel. He was convicted and appealed. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that the judge had not...
SCRAM
Posted on June 12, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court accepted a consent discipline proposal and imposed a public censure of an attorney convicted of misdemeanor offenses as a result of a bar fight. He had immediately notified bar authorities of the disposition of the criminal...
Hearing No Objection...
Posted on June 12, 2009A summary judgment granted to a law firm in a suit for fees was affirmed by the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department: The plaintiff established its prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law...
It's A Bird, It's A Plane, No...
Posted on June 12, 2009A recent ethics opinion from Alaska weighs in on the Super Lawyer controversy: The use of lawyer rankings in advertising and promotional press releases has become controversial. Super Lawyers has received the most attention in recent ethics opinions. A minority...
Return To Sender
Posted on June 12, 2009A New York solo practitioner sued another New York solo practitioner under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act after receiving 14 unsolicited fax communications. The sender specializes in bringing attorney malpractice actions. The New York Supreme Court had granted summary judgment...
Illinois Bar Charges
Posted on June 12, 2009The Illinois Administrator has filed disciplinary complaints in two matters. One complaint alleges that the attorney wrote a will for a client a month after the client had surgery for brain cancer. The lawyer and his spouse were designated beneficiaries...
Activist Judge Reversed
Posted on June 12, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals has reversed criminal convictions and ordered new trials in two separate cases that were tried before the same Baltimore City Circuit judge. The court held that the judge's "repreated and egregious behavior created a fundamentally...
False Testimony In Disciplinary Case Draws Disbarment
Posted on June 11, 2009An attorney who was found to have engaged in 36 counts of ethics violations involving five clients was disbarred by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department. The lawyer had not helped his cause by attempting to...
Lawyer Sanctioned For Initiating Guardianship Against Former Client
Posted on June 11, 2009In a case that evaluates the difficulties in representing an elderly client with potentially diminishing capacity, a majority of the Washington State Supreme Court imposed an 18 month suspension of an attorney for initiating a guardianship proceeding against a former...
Certifications Expanded In Florida
Posted on June 11, 2009The Florida Supreme Court has adopted amendments to the rules governing the Bar that permit certification of specialty in the areas of education law and adoption law. The amended rule, which takes effect immediately, is attached to the court's order....
Reconsideration Of Misappropriation Sanction Rule Narrowly Averted
Posted on June 11, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals recently entered an order denying en banc consideration of a decision of a three judge division of the court disbarring a lawyer for intentional misappropriation. The division had applied the Addams decision, which...
Relief Reversed
Posted on June 11, 2009The Rhode Island Supreme Court has held that a motions judge improperly granted post-conviction relief to a defendant who claimed that his trial counsel labored under an impermissible conflict of interest. The lawyer had simultaneously represented a co-defendant in the...
Stayed Suspension For Misconduct As Public Official
Posted on June 11, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today imposed a six-month suspension, with the full term of suspension stayed on conditions, against the law license of Cleveland attorney George L. Forbes. The Court...
Call for Papers for "Law Firm Evolution: Brave New World or Business as Usual?"
Posted on June 11, 2009[posted by Bill Henderson] The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center has issued a call for papers for a March 2010 conference. The topic could not be more timely: "Law Firm Evolution: Brave...
From the AALS Mid-Year: The Academic-Practice Gap in the Basic Business Associations Course
Posted on June 10, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw The AALS asked me to give the "junior faculty" perspective on a panel here in Long Beach assessing the state of the basic business associations course. As I noted, it's a strange "junior-ness" as I'm going...
Threats Against Judge No Basis For Recusal
Posted on June 10, 2009In a decision issued prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in Caperton v. Massey Coal, the New Mexico Supreme Court held that a judge had not abused her discretion in denying the recusal motion of a defendant with three...
Large Cushion Fails To Soften Fall
Posted on June 10, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals has disbarred an attorney for misconduct in his handling of advanced fees and the operation of his trust account. The attorney, who was admitted in 1975, had worked for a law firm prior to opening...
Deferred Associates May Serve As Judicial Interns
Posted on June 10, 2009The Massachusetts Committee on Judicial Ethics has issued an advisory opinion on the propriety of allowing law firm associates with a deferred start date and financial benefits to serve as unpaid judicial interns. The committee does not view the proposed...
Fee Suit Dismissed
Posted on June 09, 2009A trial court order denying dismissal of a law firm's suit for unpaid fees was reversed by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department. The firm had sued an individual defendant along with the entity client: Accepting...
Stipulated Discipline
Posted on June 09, 2009An interesting stipulated disposition from the District of Columbia has led to a recommended 60 day suspension, which will be sent to the Court of Appeals for final action. The lawyer agreed the he had misrepresented his status at Pillsbury...
Let The Sunshine In
Posted on June 09, 2009Legal Ethics Forum reported yesterday that California Chief Trial Counsel Scott Drexel has been denied reappointment. I solicited the views of David Cameron Carr, who represents accused California lawyers and has previously commented on posts on this blog...
Multiple DUIs Violate Rules
Posted on June 09, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that multiple driving while intoxicated offenses violate the rules governing lawyer behavior. The court also affirmed findings of misconduct relating to the failure to supervise a non-lawyer employee. The court noted that the offenses...
Bar Alleges Lawyer Misled Client For 27 Years
Posted on June 08, 2009In a case involving allegations that a lawyer had misled his client about the status of his appeal, the Illinois ARDC has filed charges alleging that the misrepresentations to the client took place over a 27 year period: Between November...
Breaking News
Posted on June 08, 2009The United States Supreme Court has held (by a 5-4 vote) that disqualification was required in the case involving the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The case involves the election of a justice to the court who thereafter refused...
Conviction Overturned With Instructions To Acquit
Posted on June 08, 2009Not a legal profession case, but of possible interest is a recent decision of the West Virginia Supreme Court Court of Appeals overturning a murder conviction in a case self-defense in the face of horrific domestic abuse. The court sent...
Stalking Conviction Draws Reciprocal Indefinite Suspension
Posted on June 08, 2009An attorney had been suspended for three months in New Jersey as a result of a conviction for fourth degree stalking. The Maryland Court of Appeals concluded that an indefinite suspension was the appropriate reciprocal discipline for the conduct, even...
Charges Dismissed
Posted on June 08, 2009The Georgia Supreme Court accepted a special master's recommendation and dismissed charges of conflict of interest. The accused attorney represented retirees in an administrative ERISA proceeding. An associate joined the lawyer's firm who had previosl;y represented the opposing party and...
Just Visiting
Posted on June 08, 2009A summary from the IARDC web page of a case decided by the Illinois Review Board: The Administrator charged Norton with misconduct in connection with her representation of a defendant in a first degree murder case. The Administrator alleged that...
Revelation
Posted on June 05, 2009The Iowa Supreme Court suspended an attorney's license without possibility of reinstatement for eighteen months in a case involving a host of ethical violations in several matters. One finding of misconduct related to the lawyer's deposition of a former client...
Billing Misconduct Charges In Florida
Posted on June 05, 2009An April 2009 post from the Florida Issues blog: A Jacksonville lawyer accused of overbilling taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent poor defendants could face discipline by The Florida Bar, where a formal complaint has been filed against...
Escrow Activity Leads To Immediate Suspension
Posted on June 04, 2009The New York Appellate Division ordered the immediate suspension of an attorney in light of evidence concerning unexplained withdrawals from an escrow account: The Departmental Disciplinary Committee is now seeking an order...immediately suspending respondent from the practice of law based...
Florida Bar Section May File Amicus Brief
Posted on June 04, 2009The Florida Supreme Court has held that the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar may file an amicus brief on a matter of interest to the section. The ruling came in a lawsuit initiated to enjoin the brief. The...
The Wrong Way To Get Clients
Posted on June 04, 2009A summary of a recent bar discipline case from the California Bar Journal: [An attorney] was suspended for two years, stayed, placed on two years of probation with a 60-day actual suspension and he was ordered to prove his rehabilitation...
"Egregious Abdication Of... Ethical Obligations"
Posted on June 04, 2009An interesting "case of the month" from the National Organization of Bar Counsel: A federal prosecutor?s personal animosity leading to a collateral investigation of an opposing defense team warrants sanction. On April 9, 2009, Judge Alan Gold of the United...
Law Firm Not Liable To Hedge Fund Investors
Posted on June 04, 2009The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of an action brought by hedge fund investors against the fund's law firm. the court concluded that "neither the allegations in the complaint nor the surrounding circumstances give rise to the...
Costs Award Overturned For Threatening Letter To Adverse Witness
Posted on June 04, 2009A majority of the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department overturned an award of costs against a client and lawyer that was based on the lawyer's letter to an adverse witness in an anticipated arbitration hearing concerning...
Ex Parte Contacts Draw Reprimand
Posted on June 04, 2009The Mississippi Supreme Court approved a sanction that had been proposed by the Commission on Judicial Performance and imposed a public reprimand along with a fine and costs of a justice court judge. The matter involved a defendant charged with...
The Never-Ending Wrong
Posted on June 03, 2009An interesting decision of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals deals with the literary estate of noted writer Katherine Anne Porter. Ms. Porter died testate in 1980, leaving a literary trust for the benefit of the University of Maryland College...
Torpedoed
Posted on June 03, 2009A former New Jersey part-time judge was permanently barred from future judicial office by order of the New Jersey Supreme Court. The Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct had concluded that the judge had engaged in misconduct by presiding in court...
Judge's DWI Leads To Censure
Posted on June 03, 2009The New Jersey Supreme Court censured a municipal court judge as a result of a drunk driving incident. Details of the underlying incident from a report last December in the Cape May County Herald: A local municipal court judge charged...
Jury May Decide If Hazing Was Pretext For Coach's Dismissal
Posted on June 03, 2009From the web page of the Bangor (Maine) Daily News: The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has sent back to Penobscot County Superior Court a former Brewer softball coach?s claim that she was fired because she is a lesbian. The court...
Imputed Conflict Does Not Result In Reversal Of Murder Conviction
Posted on June 02, 2009The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the first degree murder conviction of a defendant on charges that he had poisened his wife. The defendant had claimed that his counsel labored under a prohibited imputed conflict of interest because a fellow public...
Judicial Compensation In New York
Posted on June 02, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department today held that a commission created for the purpose, rather than the courts, should address issues relating to judicial compensation: The judicial system is at its best when it stands...
Insufficient Evidence Of Conflict
Posted on June 02, 2009The Connecticut Appellate Court affirmed a trial court determination to grant custody of a minor child to foster parents. The biological mother had appealed, claiming that an attorney had labored under a conflict of interest in his dual roles as...
Written Agreement Does Not Negate Violation
Posted on June 02, 2009A subcommittee of the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board accepted an agreed disposition for a 60 day suspension. The attorney had handled a matter while suspended for failure to comply withb mandatory CLE requirements. Further, the attorney was found to...
Thy Brother's Former Wife
Posted on June 02, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended the disbarment of an attorney whose brother had died while overseas working as a contractor for Halliburton Company. The lawyer induced his brother's former wife to execute an assigment of rights paying life...
Self Dealing Draws Disbarment Recommendation
Posted on June 02, 2009An attorney who had violated Rule 1.8(a) in his self-dealing with an estate is the subject of a disbarment recommendation by the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board. The board concluded that the misconduct was more severe than in prior cases where....
Socratic Ethical Violation
Posted on June 02, 2009The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed all findings of misconduct save one and, as a result, remanded the matter for a sanction recommendation in a matter involving a conflict of interest in a real estate transaction: ...with this sole...
Sanction Proposed For Contract Attorney Overbilling
Posted on June 02, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended a three-month suspension of an attorney based on findings that he had overbilled while working as a contract attorney for Mayer Brown. The detailed findings: We find the Administrator proved by clear and convincing...
The Run, The Park & Other Things
Posted on June 01, 2009Also from the California Bar Journal: [An attorney] was suspended for two years, stayed, placed on three years of probation with an actual two-year suspension and he was ordered to take the MPRE, comply with rule 9.20 and prove his...
Find A Lawyer
Posted on June 01, 2009From the web page of the California Bar Journal: The State Bar will create an online ?Find A Lawyer? program for the public after a divided board of governors approved the project last month. But if a consumer is getting...
Proposed Public Reprimand Rejected
Posted on June 01, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court ordered a one-year suspension of an attorney who had falsely notarized documents in a series of real estate transactions in which he was the purchaser. He also had failed to pay transfer taxes on one of...
Closure
Posted on June 01, 2009An attorney who did not properly close his practice was reprimanded by the South Carolina supreme Court. The facts: Due to a down turn in business and resulting economic hardship, respondent closed his law practice. Respondent admits he failed to...
"I Would Have Done Differently If I Knew You Were Watching"
Posted on June 01, 2009An Arkansas Circuit Court judge is the subject of a proposed removal from the bench. According to the report from KSLA 12: A panel of the state committee that disciplines judges has recommended that Circuit Judge L.T. Simes III of...
Child Pornography On Hard Drive Leads To Bar Discipline
Posted on May 31, 2009The web page of the Tennessee Board on Professional Responsibility reports that an attorney was suspended for five years as a result of his conviction for possession of a computer hard drive that had three or more images of child...
Congratulations
Posted on May 30, 2009Congrats and further best wishes to Jeff and Alene Lipshaw, who are now celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary (?!!) in Santorini, Greece. I know they are having a good time. And we are happy for them! [Alan Childress] UPDATE: Thanks,...
Entering And Breaking Leads To Reciprocal Sanction
Posted on May 30, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court imposed reciprocal discipline of a stayed suspension for one year and one day based on the same sanction imposed in Colorado.After drinking to excess, the attorney entered the home of an estranged boyfriend without permission through...
Fiduciary Conflicts
Posted on May 30, 2009North Dakota has amended its Rule 1.8 (prohibited transactions) to add a provision governing lawyers who act as a fiduciary of an estate, trust or conservatorship . The pertinent addition reads as follows: (l) Neither a lawyer serving as a...
More From North Carolina
Posted on May 29, 2009A couple of interesting disciplinary decisions from the North Carolina State Bar web page: [ A lawyer] of Cary was reprimanded by the DHC for referring to herself as "Madame Justice" on her campaign website after the Grievance Committee issued...
Public Offender
Posted on May 29, 2009The web page of the North Carolina State Bar reports on the following discipline: The DHC suspended Robert Brown Jr. of Durham for five years for sexually harassing several employees when he was Durham County Public Defender. After serving three...
Open Your Mail
Posted on May 29, 2009Pemmsylvania is a jurisdiction that treats practicing while suspension as serious misconduct that warrants a significant sanction. An attorney who had placed on inactive status for failure to complete required CLE was suspended for a year and a day by...
New Trial for Unkindest Cut
Posted on May 29, 2009The Kansas Supreme Court reversed a Court of Appeals decision and ordered a new trial in a medical malpractice case. The trial court had granted a motion for new trial to a defendant doctor who was alleged to have negligently...
Repeat Offenses Draw Prospective Suspension
Posted on May 29, 2009An attorney with a significant record of prior discipline, including violations after reinstatement from an earlier suspension, was again suspended for one year by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The lawyer had violated ethical rules in three matters, two involving clients...
Related Reinstatement Cases
Posted on May 29, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department entered two virtually identical orders of reinstatement (linked here and here). The attorneys had the disciplinary matter heard by the same referee and were both suspended for two years on...
Overwhelming Life Circumstances Lead To Misconduct
Posted on May 29, 2009In a bar discipline case decided yesterday, the Ohio Supreme Court determined to impose indefinite suspension rather than disbarment for a host of ethical violations in multiple matters including misappropriation of client funds. The court pointed to a number of...
Not Knowingly Frivolous
Posted on May 28, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed a referee's findings of misconduct in two of four charged instances but reduced the proposed 60 day suspension to a public censure with costs. The attorney had represented a bridal shop owner in a conversion...
Prior Experience Does Not Prevent Recordkeeping Issues
Posted on May 28, 2009The Ohio Supreme Court web page reports that an Akron attorney: ...has been suspended by the Supreme Court of Ohio for two years, with the second year of that term stayed on conditions, for failing to segregate funds he held...
Sotomayor and Diabetes
Posted on May 28, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I have nothing to say about the nomination, and very little reaction, other than this seems to be a perfectly fine nomination of a perfectly fine judge who has the temerity not to have a consistent...
No Second Bite
Posted on May 27, 2009The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the determination of a single justice imposing reciprocal disbarment of an attorney based on his disbarment in the District of Columbia. The court declined the invitation to relitigate the facts found to establish...
Judge May Receive Fees For Legal Work
Posted on May 27, 2009From the Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Commission: Opinion Number: 2009-09 Date of Issue: May 13, 2009 ISSUE Whether a recently appointed judge may receive a fee for legal work performed prior to taking office. ANSWER: Yes. FACTS Prior to taking...
Private Eye
Posted on May 27, 2009From the Times of London: Thousands of disciplinary rulings against lawyers accused of misconduct can be publicised after one of Britain's leading solicitors lost a battle in the Court of Appeal to keep his own case under wraps. Lawyers for...
Reinstated Without Conditions
Posted on May 27, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court has granted a petition for reionstatement of an attorney who presently resides in Kansas and does not practice in Oklahoma. A dissent would grant reinstatement with conditions: This is a proceeding for de novo review of...
Every Partner's Nightmare
Posted on May 27, 2009The Illinois ARDC has filed a second amended complaint alleging that a law firm partner engaged in a six-year course of conduct involving misappropriation from his law firm's IOLTA account. the charges further allege that the misconduct was concealed by...
Twice Disbarred
Posted on May 27, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed reciprocal discipline based on the attorney's New Hampshire disbarment. The court summarized the findings of misconduct: By order and opinion of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire dated October...
A Loan At Last
Posted on May 27, 2009The Illinois ARDC has filed a disciplinary complaint against an attorney who had loaned a woman he was dating $20,000 in exchange for a promissory note that provided for monthly repayments. He then married the borrower, who later sought divorce...
No Voice, No Violation
Posted on May 26, 2009One of the difficult problems in applying disciplinary rules to professional lapses is determining whether litigations errors amount to ethical violations. In other words, is every act of potential legal malpractice an ethical violation? In a recent report, an Arizona...
"In Issue" Privilege Waiver
Posted on May 26, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed the denial of a motion by a law firm defendant in a legal malpractice case for access to materials protected by the plaintiff's attorney-client privilege: This legal malpractice action...
Law Firm May Be Sued For Collusion
Posted on May 26, 2009A decision today from the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department: Plaintiff, a member of Alliance Network LLC (a limited liability company), had standing to bring this derivative action alleging that the law firm and one of...
AALS Section on Professional Responsibility Issues Spring 09 Newsletter
Posted on May 26, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Thanks are owed again to the generosity of the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility, both for the time and effort it took to write such a truly newsy newsletter (its helpful features extolled in our previous...
Unduly Harsh
Posted on May 25, 2009A Louisiana attorney who had acted as counsel in a child custody matter while on inactive status failed to participate in the ensuing bar investigation and prosecution. The Disciplinary Board recommended disbarment for the violations. While noting that the harm...
Agreed Sanction
Posted on May 23, 2009A Virginia lawyer agreed to a 30 month suspension for mishandling two client matters. One involved an accident case; the other a divorce. There was an agreed upon finding of dishonesty in both matters. According to the order, the attorney...
Brothers In Misconduct
Posted on May 22, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department suspended two brothers for one year and until further court order but stayed the suspensions on completion of six credit hours in legal ethics and professionalism. The attorneys "may apply...
False Positive Claim Rejected
Posted on May 22, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended a suspension for 18 months and until further court order in a case involving a conviction for cocaine possession and subsequent positive test for cocaine as revealed by a court-ordered urine test. The attorney...
Continued Indifference To The Rule Of Law
Posted on May 22, 2009The Nebraska Supreme Court disbarred an attorney for misconduct involving a federal criminal conviction as well as a series of client-related ethical violations. The conviction involved a series of $9,000 bank deposits in cash that the lawyer received as investment...
Pension Answer Book Not Firm Asset
Posted on May 21, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed a judgment on behalf of a departing lawyer against his former law firm but remanded for a recalculation of damages. The court held: The finding that respondents were guilty...
Corporate CEO Not A Vulnerable Client
Posted on May 21, 2009A very interesting bar discipline case from Florida has resulted in the Supreme Court's rejection of the referee's proposed admonishment in favor of a suspension of 91 days. The attorney was charged with misconduct in two counts involving the same...
Insufficient Evidence Of Moral Change
Posted on May 21, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court denied a petition for reinstatement of an attorney who had been indefinitely suspended in 2007. The petitioner had expressed an interest in joining his son in law's practice. The court noted that he had been admonished...
Snow Tubers Not Skiers
Posted on May 21, 2009A snow tuber who had brought a negligence action against a ski area operator was not time-barred under the then-governing statute of limitations, held the Vermont Supreme Court. The alleged injuries had occurred on a run used exclusively for snow...
No Funds Left Behind
Posted on May 20, 2009The Illinois ARDC Administrator has filed charges against an attorney for conversion of trust funds proceeds that the attorney, in his capacity of public administrator of estates. The funds were to be held for a minor beneficiary until he reached...
Let's Do Lunch
Posted on May 20, 2009The web page of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility reports a public censure imposed on an attorney for disruptive courtroom behavior. The incident that led to discipline was the subject of a Tennessee Court of Appeals decision affirming a...
Admission Granted
Posted on May 20, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court unconditionally admitted a bar applicant who was a member of the Oklahoma Bar. The applicant had been initially denied permission to sit for the bar exam because of a negative reference from an Oklahoma attorney with...
Tax Charges Lead To Interim Suspension
Posted on May 19, 2009A report from WIS10 Columbia, South Carolina: A Columbia attorney has been arrested on tax charges. According to the South Carolina Department of Revenue, investigators arrested Frank R. Ellerbe, III, 51, and charged him with five counts of failing to...
Admission Denied
Posted on May 19, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court declined to certify for admission an applicant who had passed the essay portion of the bar exam. The character and fitness issues involved the applicant's failure to disclose a charge and warrant issued for bad checks,...
Determination Voided By Unauthorized Practice
Posted on May 19, 2009From the web page of the North Dakota Supreme Court, reporting the holding of a case decided yesterday: Pro hac vice admission is required for nonresident attorneys who engage in the practice of law by appearing, either in person, by...
Racial Epithets, Lack Of Candor, Result In Denial Of Bar Admission
Posted on May 18, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court denied bar admission to an attorney licensed in Minnesota. The applicant had "used racial epithets toward two employees of DePaul University College of Law" in an incident that had taken place in 2006. He "falsely denied...
Court Disbars Lawyer Who Did Not Present Evidence
Posted on May 18, 2009The Georgia Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who had been the subject of a bar investigation initiated when three checks written on his trust account bounced. He explained that the bounced checks were the result of thefts by an employee,...
Abuse Of Vulnerable Clients
Posted on May 18, 2009A recently filed hearing officer report and recommendation from Arizona tells a truly horrifying tale of abuse of two vulnerable clients by an attorney. In one matter, the lawyer recruited another lawyer to do the real work while he billed...
Violent Altercation Leads To Bar Discipline
Posted on May 16, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court revoked the license of an attorney for misconduct both as a lawyer and in private life. The practice-related charges involved neglect of a bankruptcy matter, failure to communicate with the client, failure to return unearned fees...
Disciplinary Probation For Marijuana Possession
Posted on May 15, 2009A Michigan attorney received two years probation with conditions as a disciplinary sanction for a criminal conviction involving marijuana possession. A stipulated consent disposition in the matter had been accepted by a hearing panel. (Mike Frisch)
Cocked Or Not, Disbarment Imposed
Posted on May 15, 2009The North Dakota Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney for, among other things, a criminal conviction for terrorizing a Fargo police officer with a gun while intoxicated. The court did agree with the attorney that the evidence did not establish...
Suspension For Escrow Violations
Posted on May 15, 2009From the web page of the Tennessee Supreme Court: This is a direct appeal of a trial court judgment that modified a hearing panel?s order suspending an attorney from the practice of law for sixty days. The trial court did...
Breaking News
Posted on May 14, 2009A majority of the Washington State Supreme Court has held that one of its justices may not be defended or reimbursed for the costs of defending an ethics complaint: Justice Richard Sanders seeks review of the Court of Appeals decision...
Disregarding Sympathy
Posted on May 14, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court denied reinstatement of an attorney suspended for four years for a tax-related criminal conviction: The petitioner...was suspended from the practice of law for a period of fours years effective September 20, 2002. The suspension arose from...
Option To Sue
Posted on May 14, 2009The full text (citations omitted) of a decision today from the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department: Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Richard B. Lowe III, J.), entered October 29, 2008, which, in an action alleging...
Resignation No Basis For Reciprocal Discipline
Posted on May 14, 2009A lawyer who had resigned from the Connecticut Bar while facing disciplinary charges was able to avoid reciprocal discipline in New York. The Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department held that "neither [his] resignation nor Connecticut's acceptance of the...
Suit Against Counsel By Opposing Party Dismissed
Posted on May 14, 2009In a 71 page decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of claims against a law firm that had been instituted by a defendant in a suit that the law firm had filed. The case had its genesis...
Semper Fi
Posted on May 13, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended a one year suspension with reinstatement conditioned on further court order in a case where the attorney had refused to participate in the disciplinary case. One of the counts involved the following conduct: United...
From Utah With Advice
Posted on May 13, 2009A Utah law firm may not provide credit counseling services to South Carolina residents without complying with statutory licensing requirements. The South Carolina Supreme Court held that an exemption in the statute for attorneys at law applies only to attorneys...
No Mitigation For Self-Suspension
Posted on May 13, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court imposed a twelve month suspension of a relatively inexperienced attorney who had falsified billing and travel records, resulting in client payments in excess of the appropriate amounts. The attorney explained: ...[the attorney] stated that she did...
Honor Among Fee-Sharers
Posted on May 12, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department has held that an oral fee-sharing agreement between non-affiliated lawyers is enforceable in the courts: Plaintiff attorney alleges that he assisted defendants in a contingency fee case for which they...
GPS Installation Requires Warrant
Posted on May 12, 2009The New York Court of Appeals has held that "the installation and use of a GPS device to monitor an individual's whereabouts requires a warrant supported by probable cause." The court found that the Appellate Division majority had erred in...
Moral Turpitude
Posted on May 12, 2009The District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility issued a report last week recommending that David Safavian be disbarred for his conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude. Under D.C. case law established in the disciplinary case against Charles Colson,...
Pets As Property, Not Family
Posted on May 11, 2009Claims brought by pet owners after two cats who were being treated for hypertension died shortly after taking prescribed medication were dismissed by the Vermont Supreme Court: This case presents two questions: first, whether noneconomic damages are available when a...
Tulane Ranks #2 Among U.S. Law Schools In Only Rankings Done By Student Surveys
Posted on May 11, 2009Posted by Alan Childress So obviously the methodology is more valid than that of U.S. News & World Reports, which ignores consumer satisfaction and instead surveys the ... competitors' chair of their hiring committee??? What kind of statistical method is...
Better Late Than Never
Posted on May 11, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has recommended a public censure and probation in a matter where the attorney had engaged in a sexual relationship with a criminal client without advising to seek new counsel or disclosing the nature of the potential...
First Signs of a New Equilibrium in Entry-Level Salaries
Posted on May 11, 2009[posted by Bill Henderson, crossposted to ELS Blog] According to today's Am Law Daily, Philadelphia-based Drinker Biddle announced that instead of deferring its 37 incoming associates for six months to a year, it is going to institute an intensive training...
From This Moment On
Posted on May 10, 2009An attorney who has been on interim suspension since April 1999 was prospectively disbarred by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He had been suspended as a result of criminal charges involving multiple victims. In 2001, he was convicted of one count...
Henderson's Hierarchy of Blogging
Posted on May 08, 2009[Posted by Bill Henderson, crossposted to ELS Blog] Regrettably, I have not posted a substantive blog post since Dec. 16, 2008. Although few things are more enjoyable than blogging (primarily because blogging relies heavily on reading and thinking), over the...
The Jackass Decision
Posted on May 08, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court has posted its opinion in the case where an attorney in a bitterly-contested case called opposing counsel a "jackass" in open court. Opposing counsel responded: "Your mother is a jackass." The first lawyer then grabbed the...
Employer Disbarred, Employee Denied Admission
Posted on May 08, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who had facilitated the unauthorized practice of law by an unlicensed employee. The employee represented clients in depositions and participated in settlement conferences. The conduct took place after the employee had graduated from...
Pro Bono Attorneys May Receive Attorney's Fees
Posted on May 08, 2009The Maryland Court of Special Appeals has held that attorney's fees may be awarded in family law cases even though the legal services were performed by a non-profit legal services organization. The court concluded that important policy considerations weigh in...
Grain-Related Nebraska Misconduct Draws Reprimand
Posted on May 08, 2009The Nebraska Supreme Court imposed a public reprimand of an attorney who had been convicted in federal court of the misdemeanor of making and delivering a writing containing a known false statement. The lawyer represented (and served on the board)...
The Invisible Hand Meets the Internal Point of View: The Strange Mish-Mash of Law & Economics
Posted on May 08, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Richard Posner published an eminently sensible analysis of the bursting of the credit bubble in the Wall Street Journal the other day (a prelude, I assume, to his new book, The Failure of Capitalism, which he...
The Coverup, Not the Crime
Posted on May 07, 2009From the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio has imposed a one-year license suspension, with the final six months of that term stayed on conditions, against the license of Cleveland attorney Jeffrey F. Slavin for professional misconduct in....
Absent Class Member Denied Further Discovery Into Counsel's Files
Posted on May 07, 2009The New York Court of Appeals has held that "the class counsel-absent member relationship is simply too unlike the traditional attorney-client relationship to support extending the Sage Realty presumption to absent class members." The presumption of the prior case was...
David Souter's Pen; FIU And The Sunshine Band
Posted on May 07, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Two interesting stories (to me) around the web worth pointing to: (1) Chris Zorn at Empirical Legal Studies Blog shares his assessment of the brand of fountain pen traditionally used by David Souter. I have to...
New Encyclopedia Published on Islam, Part of Series on World's Religions
Posted on May 06, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Frequent commenter Patrick S. O'Donnell passes along this link to purchase the new Facts On File Publishing volume, Encyclopedia of Islam, the newest part of its world's religions series. This volume's editor is Juan Campo at...
No Mitigation For Cocaine Addiction
Posted on May 06, 2009The majority of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ordered that an attorney's license be annulled, with any reinstatement conditioned on restitution and satisfactory proof that his drug abuse is being treated and is under control. If so, reinstatement...
Perils Of Louisiana Bar Admission
Posted on May 06, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court decided three bar admission matters that provide insight into the operation of bar character and fitness requirements. The first matter involved an applicant's third petition for bar admission was denied by the Louisiana Supreme Court...
"An Emotionally Frazzled State"
Posted on May 06, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has recommended that a consent agreement for a 30 day suspension followed by two years probation be imposed in a matter in which the lawyer represented the husband in a custody dispute. The matter was complicated...
Attend Court At Your Own Risk
Posted on May 05, 2009The Tennessee Court of the Judiciary imposed two public censures of a general sessions judge. One matter involved the judge's order that a citizen observer of court proceedings be taken into custody and forced to submit to a drug test....
Breach Of Trust Draws Permanent Disbarment
Posted on May 05, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today permanently disbarred attorney Justin Peter Parrish of Rocky River for multiple violations of state attorney discipline rules arising from his misappropriation of funds from a...
Photography Judge
Posted on May 05, 2009An opinion from the Massachusetts Committee on Judicial Ethics deals with the propriety of a judge who is a landscape photographer to pursue his avocation: From your description of what you intend to do, your periodic donation or sale of...
Cyberspace Artifact Not Misappropriation Of Name
Posted on May 05, 2009A law firm settled litigation with two departing partners that had been initiated in the wake of the break up. Thereafter, the firm sued the partners for alleged breach of the terms of the settlement. The departing partners claimed breach...
Henderson on Big Firm Woes
Posted on May 04, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Brian Leiter started a comment thread on the status of big law firm hiring freezes, pay contractions, downsizing, and other indicia of the downturn. Our Bill Henderson responded to Brian's call as follows: I have been...
Executions And Medical Discipline
Posted on May 04, 2009The North Carolina Supreme Court has held that a statement from the Medical Board condemning the presence of a physican at an execution was properly enjoined. Physcians may be present without threat of disciplinary action: This case presents four issues:...
Duty To Notify Client Of Suspension
Posted on May 04, 2009An attorney who had accepted a custody case shorttly before his December 12, 2006 suspension for 60 days by the North Dakota Supreme Court drew a second 60 day suspension by the court for the misconduct. After recieving the first...
Voluntary Discipline Petition Rejected
Posted on May 04, 2009The Georgia Supreme Court followed the State Bar's recommendation to reject an attorney's petition for voluntary discipline. The attorney had admitted escrow rule violations and sought "no more than a public reprimand as discipline for his admitted violations...
Twice Disbarred
Posted on May 02, 2009From the California Bar Journal reporting a recent disbarment: Goldberg was disbarred in 1982 after pleading no contest to grand theft, was reinstated in 1991 and resumed practice in 1998 or 1999. The State Bar Court found in the new...
Is A 35 Day Month Like A Billing Day That Exceeds 24 Hours?
Posted on May 01, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department concluded that summary disbarment was appropriate for a federal felony conviction based on the following admitted facts: The plea minutes reveal that the respondent served as vice-president and general counsel...
Sign Of the Times
Posted on May 01, 2009The Vermont Supreme Court suspended a judge for six months for a conflict of interest and writing a letter for newspaper publication that contained false assertions. The court rejected the judge's attack on the findings of fact of the Judicial...
A Step Over A Fine Line
Posted on May 01, 2009The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed a district court's order that imposed a $25,000 sanction against an attorney who had brought a class action on behalf of homeowners against a manufacturer of roofing shingles and its president. The case involved claims...
Prohibited Contacts With Employees Draws Reprimand
Posted on May 01, 2009An Illinois hearing board has reprimanded an attorney who also has a pharmacy license for unauthorized communication with a represented party and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The attorney initiated contact with Bayer Corporation through a consumer help...
Caught In Revolving Door
Posted on May 01, 2009A Tennessee attorney received a public censure from the Board of Professional Responsibility for violating Rule 1.12 (a), the revolving door rule for judges. As a juvenile court judge, the attorney presided over a child custody matter. While the case...
Pattern Of Misconduct Results In Disbarment
Posted on May 01, 2009The California Bar Journal reports on a recent disbarment case: During a 16-year period since [the attorney's] 1977 admission to the bar, he committed 43 ethical violations involving 12 clients. In the most recent matter, he represented a woman in...
Promises Promises
Posted on April 30, 2009A complaint by an associate of a law firm that had claimed damages against individual partners based on allegedly false representations regarding his partnership prospects was reinstated by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department: Order, Supreme...
Sex For Fees Disbarment
Posted on April 30, 2009The Florida Supreme Court disbarred an attorney for various acts of professional misconduct including entering into a fee agreement that allowed the client a $200 credit for each time she had sex with him and a $400 credit if she...
Sanction Proposed For Volunteer Arbitrator
Posted on April 30, 2009Here's a recommendation for discipline under circumstances that I have not previously encountered: The attorney was adnitted in 2003. In 2005, he volunteered to serve on the Arizona State Bar Arbitration Committee. He initialally failed to schedule a matter assigned...
Prescription for Suspension
Posted on April 30, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court has imposed a 30 days suspension followed by two years of unsupervised probation in a matter where the attorney had given an incarcerated client prescription medication in violation of jail regulations and accepted money that he...
Absence Of Malice
Posted on April 30, 2009The New York of Appeals held that a defamation action against the New York Post was properly dismissed on summary judgment. The Post had reprinted portions of a lengthy article from the Los Angeles Times about a license revocation action...
Permanent Disbarment For Tax Crimes
Posted on April 30, 2009The Ohio Supreme Court web page reports: The Supreme Court of Ohio today permanently [a] disbarred Dayton attorney... for multiple violations of state attorney discipline rules arising from her failure to file returns or pay federal, state or municipal income...
Death Escrow Violations Lead To Conviction, Suspension
Posted on April 29, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court imposed a retroactive suspension of a year and a day in a matter where the attorney had been convicted (and subject to interim suspension) of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud. The Disciplinary Board...
Client In Coma Requires Mistrial
Posted on April 29, 2009A trial court improperly denied defense counsel's motion for a mistrial after his client had attempted to commit suicide and had been hospitalized in a coma. The trial on child rape and molestation charges was going into a third day...
Attorney Reinstated, Misconduct Was Result Of Sexual Assault By Prospective Client
Posted on April 29, 2009The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted the petition for reinstatement of an attorney who had been on disability inactive status as well as 180 day suspension. The attorney was "brutally sexually assaulted" by the prospective client during a Sunday afternoon...
Pro Se Plaintiff Permitted To Add Partners In Malpractice Suit
Posted on April 29, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed a trial court order permitting a pro se plaintiff in a legal malpractice action leave to add four additional law firm partners as defendants: Plaintiff pro se served an...
Substantially Similar
Posted on April 28, 2009An attorney was summarily disbarred by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department. The court described the basis on its decision to disbar as a result of a federal felony conviction: During his plea allocution respondent admitted...
Failure To File Leads To Suspension
Posted on April 28, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court imposed a 90 day definite suspension of an attorney who had self-reported that he had failed to file state and federal income tax returns from 2000 to 2007. The lawyer noted that no criminal prosecution...
Naming Names
Posted on April 28, 2009Courtesy of the very fine Florida ethics web site sunEthics is an interesting case involving improper closing argument by a prosecutor in a murder case. The Florida Third District Court of Appeal concluded that the evidence of guilt was overwhelming....
Suspicious But Not Unethical
Posted on April 28, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee found "clear and convincing evidence of a cavalier manner of handling legal fees and delineation of representation" but no disciplinary violations in a case where the lawyer was charged, among other things, in assisting and failing...
"Do The Right Thing"
Posted on April 27, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended a one-year stayed suspension for unauthorized practice of law and representing a client without the authority to do so. The attorney had (as in many cases we have recently reported from various jurisdictions)...
Spouse's Business Transaction Violates Rule
Posted on April 27, 2009A Colorado attorney was publicly censured based on his conditional admission that he had "negligently failed to terminate an attorney-client relationship when he learned that his wife was involved with a business transaction with his client. He therefore effectively entered...
Conviction Affirmed For Murder Of Priest
Posted on April 27, 2009A decision today from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the conviction of a defendant already serving a life sentence who had murdered a priest convicted of child molestation. The defendant is described as follows: The defendant founded his own...
Right To Fire Retained Counsel
Posted on April 27, 2009The Tennessee Supreme Court has held that retained counsel who has been discharged by the client must inform the court of the client's directive as soon as discharged: "since our earliest days, our system of justice has been reluctant to...
Not In Jest
Posted on April 27, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Fourth Judicial Department imposed a term of suspension of two years or until federal probation is terminated, whichever period is longer of an attorney convicted of conspiracy to violate the Mann Act, which...
Yes, With Restrictions
Posted on April 27, 2009A new opinion from the Oklahoma Judicial Ethics Advisory Panel: Question(s): May a judge, at night and non working days, be employed in checking land records for persons engaged in oil and gas leasing operations? Facts: The judge asks if...
Put It In Writing
Posted on April 26, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has recommended a censure with one year of probation for misconduct that involved, among other things, violating Arizona Rule 1.5 (b). The attorney had twice raised his hourly fee by $25 without notifying the client of...
Unauthorized Practice By Suspended In-House Counsel
Posted on April 24, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has recommended a six-month suspension retroactive to early March of an attorney who had engaged in unauthorized practice for serving as chief legal officer of two corporate entities while suspended in Arizona for CLE non-compliance...
Stay Away From The MBTA
Posted on April 24, 2009The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court accepted the resignation and ordered the disbarment of an attorney convicted of open and gross lewdness, assault and batttery, and indecent exposure. According to a summary on the web page of the Board of Bar....
Campaign Contribution From Entrusted Funds Draws Suspension
Posted on April 24, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court suspended an attorney for misconduct that included using entrusted funds to make a contribution to his campaign for a judicial district court judgeship. After a remand from the court that questioned the sufficiency of a fully-probated...
New Blog on Complexity Models and the Law
Posted on April 23, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw There's a new entrant to the legal blogosphere - the Computational Legal Studies blog - run by Dan Katz and Michael Bommarito at the University of Michigan. Katz and Bommarito are both Ph.D. candidates in political...
CLE Obligations With Teeth
Posted on April 23, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has imposed disbarment by consent of an attorney who had not notified clients and courts of his suspension for failure to comply with mandatory CLE obligations. He also undertook a new matter after taking CLE courses...
Special Counsel Not Needed
Posted on April 23, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court has imposed an indefinite suspension of at least two years for violating eight Rules in connection with his representation and employment of client "X." He had denied the allegations that he had testified falsely, submitted false...
"A More Than Reasonable Belief"
Posted on April 23, 2009The New Jersey Appellate Division has held that the trial judge in a domestic relations matter had improperly failed to recuse himself from the case. The judge had been a law partner of the attorney for the party seeking recusal...
The Joys Of Being Bar Counsel
Posted on April 23, 2009There are times when the often thankless job of disciplinary counsel has its rewards. For me, many if not most of those times involved cases where I had taken an exception and argued a position contrary to that of the...
No Need to Remand
Posted on April 22, 2009The Illinois Review Board rejected a hearing board's finding of no misconduct in a matter where a lawyer had submitted inaccurate caseload information in order to secure a grant for a legal services agency, based on her supervisor's assurances that...
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Posted on April 22, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw We're heading into our last couple days of classes, and I saw a colleague (who will remain nameless) bouncing his way down the hallway with a disgustingly cheerful air, and what we used to refer to...
A Sad Situation
Posted on April 22, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court imposed a 15 month suspension, backdated to an interim suspension, of an attorney convicted of offenses related to drug possession. The attorney also had been criminally charged with misapplication of entrusted property involving over $500, 000...
Career Ends In Revocation
Posted on April 22, 2009A Virginia attorney has consented to the revocation of his law license. The Bar Counsel had sought an expedited hearing on charges that the attorney had loaned himself over $4 million in entrusted funds from an estate. The Bar was...
Trifecta Of False Statements Proven
Posted on April 22, 2009An Illinois Hearing Board has recommended a three year suspension in the much publicized case involving an attorney who had failed to disclose information in his admission application to the University of Chicago Law School, altered his law school transcript...
No Examination Required
Posted on April 21, 2009The Washington State Court of Appeals, Division II, reversed the one-year license suspensions of three exotic dancers, concluding that the dancers had been denied due process. The conduct that led to the suspensions was described by the court: On January...
Unethical Speeding?
Posted on April 21, 2009A lawyer was suspended by consent for four months in South Carolina, retroactive to an interim suspension, in connection with five matters. Three involved speeding--one driving 140 mph in a 70 zone. A fourth matter involved a traffic stop during...
Ohio Supreme Court Sustains Claim Of Privilege
Posted on April 21, 2009The web page of the Ohio Supreme Court reports a ruling from the court: The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that an investigatory report prepared by a private law firm on behalf of a public agency is covered by...
Intent Finding Key To Sanction Determination
Posted on April 21, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today suspended the law license of Hinckley attorney Kenneth L. Lewis for one year for forging the signature of a judge on a draft judgment entry...
Email As Evidence Of Misconduct
Posted on April 21, 2009A South Carolina attorney was reprimanded by consent for misconduct during the course of the representation of a client in a divorce matter. The evidence against the lawyer consisted in part of email responses to client inquiries about the status...
An Unreasonable Fee?
Posted on April 20, 2009The web page of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility reports that a Nashville attorney has been suspended on an interim basis. The Board alleges that the attorney poses a substantial harm to the public based on charges that he...
Important Decision On Bar Confidentiality
Posted on April 20, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court has dismissed disciplinary charges against two attorneys who had been charged with violating bar rules mandating confidentiality of disciplinary proceedings . The court held that the rule violated the First Amendment of the United States Consitution...
Reality Bites
Posted on April 20, 2009An Arizona hearing officer recommends the censure of an attorney admitted in April 2005 based on a proposed consent disposition. The attorney was the subject of two complaints. When a divorce client filed a bar complaint in July 2008, he...
Academia
Posted on April 18, 2009Over at John Flood's RATs blog site -- he is a British law-and-society prof who occasionally does stateside duty teaching legal ethics in U.S. law schools -- John posts the wonderful cartoon below, debates a commenter over whether the joke...
When It Rains It Poors: Now Texas Has Revoked License of Solo Practitioner For Unpaid Student Loan Debt
Posted on April 18, 2009Posted by Alan Childress As a follow-up to Mike's story Thursday on the New York bar applicant who was denied admission for student load debt, consider that even existing law licenses are at risk. The National Law Journal's Leigh Jones...
Full Contingent Fee Earned
Posted on April 17, 2009The Nebraska Supreme Court has held that a firm firm that had promptly secured the settlement of a serious personal injury matter was entitled to enforce a 1/3 contingent fee argeement entered into by the client. After an earlier remand...
Credit For Time Served
Posted on April 17, 2009From the Web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The license of [a] Cincinnati attorney...has been indefinitely suspended by the Supreme Court of Ohio for failing to refund unearned legal fees, failing to notify clients that he had allowed his...
Credibility Findings Favor Lawyer
Posted on April 17, 2009A 60 day suspension was imposed by the Maryland Court of Appeals in a disciplinary case involving three separate matters. The court sustained the hearing judge's finding of no misconduct for the lawyer's failure to disclose two traffic tickets in...
No Free Lunch
Posted on April 17, 2009The Kansas Supreme Court censured an in-house corporate attorney who ate meals in the company cafeteria (run by an independent vendor) and left without paying. After he had been observed on several occasions, a video camera was installed to catch...
Multiple Failures
Posted on April 16, 2009From the web page of the Minnesota Supreme Court: Suspension from the practice of law for 60 days is warranted for lawyer who failed to file individual income tax returns, failed to report income to taxing authorities, failed to maintain...
That Time of Year: Exam Tips for Law Students Reloaded
Posted on April 16, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Maybe it is actually too late for some of the more useful exam-taking tips (like listen and engage during the course, and study hard), but I thought I would point to some good advice for test-takers...
El Dorado, the Cusp, and Cost-Benefit Analysis
Posted on April 16, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Several times over the years I've quoted Robert Louis Stevenson: "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." I decided to find the source of the quote, and it is in the essay "El...
Trust Account Violations Lead To Disbarment
Posted on April 16, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court disbarred an attorney for misconduct primarily involving the operation of his trust accounts. He had a general practice that featured a high volume of real estate closings. He was the sole signatory on trust accounts....
Better Judging Through Education
Posted on April 16, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today announced the adoption of amendments concerning continuing judicial education requirements. The amendments to Rule IV, Section 2 of the Rules for the Government of the...
Fair Response
Posted on April 16, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals held that a prosecutor's rebuttal closing argument fairly commented on the closing argument of defense counsel. Defense counsel had called the jury's attention to potential witnesses that the State had not called and suggested that...
Robertson on Lawyers' Identity, Judgment, and Cognitive Bias
Posted on April 16, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Cassanda Burke Robertson (Case Western, left) has posted Judgment, Identity, and Independence on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Whenever a new corporate or governmental scandal erupts, onlookers ask "Where were the lawyers?" Why would attorneys not have...
LPB Still in Top 35 of Law Prof Blogs, Says TaxProf Sitemeter Survey
Posted on April 16, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Because of the many ethical readers and other occasional lurkers here (and we do thank you), TaxProf Blog's latest survey of traffic on blogs by U.S. law professors ranks The Legal Profession Blog as number 31...
Admission Denied Due To Unpaid Student Loans
Posted on April 16, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department denied the application for bar admission of an applicant who had passed the February 2008 bar exam. The applicant disclosed student loans with a total balance of $430,000. He professed...
Drunk Drag Racing Results In Death, Bar Resignation
Posted on April 15, 2009The Oklahoma Supreme Court accepted the resignation of an attorney as a result of the following criminal conduct: The charges in Tulsa County District Court Case No. CF-2008-1108, stemmed from occurrences on December 22, 2007, when Respondent was drag racing...
How To Find A New Practice Specialty
Posted on April 15, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals disbarred an attorney based on findings that he had committed prejury by filing false business reports under oath in bankruptcy proceedings and had flagrantly disobeyed court orders. The attorney had moved to Maryland after serving...
Fatal Attraction
Posted on April 15, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals imposed an indefinite suspension of at least 24 months on an already suspended attorney who had engaged in a romantic relationship with a client. When the client raised concerns about how the personal relationship might....
A Reasonable Fee
Posted on April 14, 2009An attorney was retained by the father of a deceased child to prosecute a wrongful death action. The father and the lawyer agreed to a 1/3 contingency fee. The case was settled for the defendant's insurance policy limit of $300,000....
Fargo
Posted on April 14, 2009It's a day for cases involving discipline against pistol packing lawyers. The North Dakota Supreme Court has a case scheduled for dispostion today in which the Disciplinary Board has recommended disbarment. The attorney's issue on appeal: Does the record support...
Disbarment For Bank Robbery
Posted on April 14, 2009The Louisiana Supreme Court permanently disbarred as a result of his conviction for armed bank robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. He had "entered the bank and requested to open a new accountand rent a safety...
Third Party Exception To American Rule
Posted on April 14, 2009The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that the third-party exception to the American Rule governing counsel fees does not apply in a circumstance where the tortfeasor and the putative third party are effectively the same. The case involved an...
A Problem With Authority
Posted on April 14, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended the disbarment of an attorney with "a previous history of instituting legal actions against judges and court personnel when they, acting in their official capacities, seek to curtail [his] misconduct as an attorney...
Proposed Changes In California Bar Discipline
Posted on April 13, 2009The California Bar Journal reports: Attorneys who have been disbarred twice will lose their license permanently if the Supreme Court approves a proposal from the State Bar Board of Governors. A stronger proposal, approved by the board in 2006 that...
Not Ineffective Assistance
Posted on April 13, 2009An undocumented alien who had pleaded guilty to a felony drug offense was unable to establish that his attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to advise him that deportation was certain as a result of the plea. The...
Improving Prosecutorial Accountability
Posted on April 13, 2009The Justice Project has released its report on prosecutorial misconduct, along with the following press release: The Justice Project (TJP) released today a report detailing the causes of prosecutorial misconduct and how reforms can prevent prosecutorial errors that lead to...
Ethics Code For Mediators
Posted on April 13, 2009The North Dakota Supreme Court is considering adoption of a proposed code of ethics for mediators. The court states: The purpose of this Code of Ethics is to provide standards of ethical conduct to guide mediators who provide mediation services,...
Unconditional Exclusion
Posted on April 13, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court took disciplinary action against another former Milberg Weiss attorney last week. A report from USA Today describes the attorney's role in the criminal case: Known as the "money man," Bershad collected cash from conspiring partners and...
Fee Apportionment Affirmed
Posted on April 13, 2009A decision from the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department in a fight over legal fees between two law firms: Order...in a dispute between plaintiff's outgoing and incoming counsel as to the division of a $1,000,000 contingency....
Philosophers of the Cusp: Evidence of Twice-Born Empiricism?
Posted on April 12, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Surfing around this morning on William James' (right, Harvard) concept of the "twice-born" soul, I found a piece by Charles Taylor that describes it well, and helped me "theorize" two bits of data from the morning...
Washington Post's Annual Peeps Show: 2009 Finalists & Winner
Posted on April 12, 2009Posted by Alan Childress It is that time of year again, and quite a tradition that the Washington Post started recently. It caught on this year quite well, and great finalists abound, with a photo gallery and story here linked....
Do Attorney-Arbitrators Hand Out Less Money Than Nonattorney-Arbitrators? Do Democrats Award More Than Republicans? Empirical Study of Lawyers, Arbitrators, and Panel Dynamics
Posted on April 11, 2009Posted by Alan Childress Stephen Choi (NYU Law), Jill Fisch (U. Penn.), and Adam C. Pritchard (U. Mich. Law) have posted to bepress their new paper, "Attorneys as Arbitrators." It looks interesting for the empirical fans among us (like Jeff's...
Judge Reprimanded
Posted on April 11, 2009A Tennessee general sessions court judge was reprimanded by the Court of the Judiciary for comments made on the bench and elsewhere that demeaned court employees. The judge referred to one employee with the last name of Hill as "Liar...
When Writing Multiple Choice Questions, Law Professors Should (a) Understand the Components of Good Questions, (b) Allow Justifications, (c) Read the Linked Article, or (d) All of the Above
Posted on April 10, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw My Suffolk colleague, Janet Fisher (right), has posted Multiple-Choice: Choosing the Best Options for More Effective and Less Frustrating Law School Testing (Vol. 37, Capital University Law Review, p. 119, 2008). Here's the abstract: Multiple-choice testing...
Get Back
Posted on April 10, 2009An attorney suspended in Tennessee was reciprocally suspended in Mississippi. He had entered into an alcohol rehabilitation agreement but failed to maintain sobriety. He also engaged in practice while on suspension. He was reinstated in Tennessee and now resides in...
Lawyers, Bankers, and Explananda
Posted on April 10, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw In this morning's Wall Street Journal, James Freeman, an assistant op-ed page editor, reviews a book about James Dimon (The House of Dimon) written by one Patricia Crisafulli. I came for the gratuitous dig at lawyers,...
Shifting Factual Claims
Posted on April 10, 2009An interesting case decided on Wednesday by the Indiana Supreme Court "[arose] from an order of adoption granted to a New Jersey resident for children brought to Indianapolis for their birth to a South Carolina woman who had been inseminated...
Reciprocal Suspension For Stalking
Posted on April 10, 2009An attorney suspended for six months with fitness in New Jersey was suspended for two years as reciprocal discipline by the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department. The attornay also must obtain reinstatement in New Jersey before...
Disbarment For Trust Account Violations
Posted on April 10, 2009The Nebraska Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who had accepted monthly $275 payments from a client in order to negotiate with and pay the client's creditors. The lawyer did not deal with the creditors. The amount to be held exceeded...
When Are Profitability Measures Unethical?
Posted on April 10, 2009An interesting, lengthy (126 page) hearing officer report and recommendation from Arizona considers ethics charges against three lawyers for the operation of a so-called "consumer law" firm that targeted unsophisticated clients. The firm had approximately 33,000 clients over a three...
File Return In Arkansas
Posted on April 09, 2009In an appeal from a reprimand imposed by the Professional Conduct Board, the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected the attorney's argument that he had not violated Rule 1.16(d) by declining to return a client's file on request of the former client's...
A Matter Of Trust
Posted on April 09, 2009Yesterday I posted a comment about a consent disposition in the District of Columbia that had generated some controversy and a dissent. Today, the Minnesoata Supreme Court shows how consent to discipline works in a disciplinary sytem that is experienced...
Privilege Waived
Posted on April 09, 2009An employee of a paper mill sought workers compensation benefits from his employer and claimed that he was unaware of the basis of the claim until he had consulted with a lawyer. This late-blooming realization was asserted as a reason...
No Duty To Supervise In California?
Posted on April 09, 2009Courtesy of Legal Ethics Forum, here is a link to a statement describing the basis for criminal charges against a former employee of the California State Bar alleging embezzlement of over $675,000 from Bar funds. According to the affidavit, the...
Reckless Disregard
Posted on April 08, 2009The Wyoming Supreme Court suspended an attorney for two months for violating Rule 8.2(a) by recklessly making false accusations against a judge presiding over a domestic relations matter. The charges of misconduct were predicated on the following language in a...
A Controversial Consent Disposition
Posted on April 08, 2009As newly-allowed negotiated dispositions begin to work their way through the D.C. bar disciplinary system, cases are emerging that demonstrate the problems as well as the benefits of the process. A recent hearing committee report accepts a consent to a...
Avoiding Obligations Leads To Indefinite Suspension
Posted on April 08, 2009The web page of the Ohio Supreme Court reports the indefinite suspension of an attorney: The law license of Columbus attorney Michael McCord has been indefinitely suspended by the Supreme Court of Ohio for multiple acts of professional misconduct. In...
Uncovered
Posted on April 08, 2009An Arizona hearing officer has recommended the disbarment of an attorney for misconduct in several matters. The lawyer was no stranger to the bar discipline system. He had been the subject of two informal reprimands, censure with probation, and had...
Clerks III: Disbarred For, Among Other Things, Phone Behavior With Judge's Law Clerk
Posted on April 08, 2009The Fifth Circuit Civil News per Robert McKnight found and reported today on this interesting Fifth Circuit decision (link): The Court also released this notable unpublished decision: In re Moity, No. 08-30826 (5th Cir. April 7, 2009) (Smith, Stewart and...
DeFabritiis on Client Correspondence
Posted on April 07, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw My colleague, Sabrina DeFabritiis (Suffolk, left), has posted Clarity, Organization: Watchwords for Client Correspondence on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article focuses on the importance of clarity and organization in client correspondence by attorneys...
The Neverending Story
Posted on April 07, 2009A decision today from the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department in the saga of Milberg Weiss. The court concludes that claims in arbitration should be consolidated: The Milberg law firm and some of its former partners...
Henderson, Zorn & Czarnezki Reply To Baker On Whether Low Judge Salaries Dilute Talent
Posted on April 07, 2009Posted by Alan Childress William Henderson (Indiana--Bloomington), Christopher Zorn (Penn State, Poly Sci., shown below at right but left) and Jason Czarnezki (Vermont Law School) have published to SSRN their empirical and interesting article "Working Class Judges...
An Anonymous Phone Call
Posted on April 07, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court imposed a reprimand and other requirements in a bar discipline matter initiated by an anonymous phone call. the attorney and the Office of Disciplinary Counsel ("ODC") entered into a stipulation by which the attorney admitted...
Ex Mero Motu
Posted on April 07, 2009The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a criminal conviction in a murder case, rejecting the contention that the trial judge failed to intervene in the prosecutor's closing argument: Defendant contends that the trial court erred by failing to intervene...
Incarceration Reimbursement
Posted on April 07, 2009A law firm appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the State of Missouri in a matter arising out of a drug arrest. The sheriff had seized $4,421 from the defendant at the time of arrest. The state...
Another Milberg Weiss Disbarment
Posted on April 06, 2009The Delaware Supreme Court accepted and ordered the consent disbarment of an attorney who had provided legal services in that jurisdiction. The attorney was formerly with Milberg Weiss and had been found guilty of criminal charges. The attachments to the...
Probation For Failure To Supervise
Posted on April 06, 2009A Louisiana hearing board has recommended a stayed six month suspension of an attorney who had failed to supervise a non-lawyer employee, resulting in misappropriation of nearly $15,000 of entrusted funds. The attorney had been seriously ill and hospitalized for...
Prosecutorial Misconduct From Start To Finish
Posted on April 06, 2009As has been noted on this blog and elsewhere, there appears to be an emerging trend of bar prosecutions against prosecutors. An Arizona hearing officer recently recommended a 30 day suspension of a deputy county attorney for misconduct in a...
Balancing Sanction Factors
Posted on April 06, 2009In a case initiated by a trust account overdraft that was exacerbated by the lawyer's false claim that the problem stemmed from bank error, the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a one-year suspension. The bar...
All Due Respect
Posted on April 06, 2009In response to a remand order of the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, a hearing committee that had been diected to hear mitigating evidence noted "[n]otwithstanding the instructions of the Disciplinary Board, and with all due respect to it, the Hearing...
No Second Bite
Posted on April 06, 2009The North Dakota Supreme Court imposed a one-year suspension as reciprocal discipline for a sanction of the Minnesota Supreme Court. The attorney had improperly used an escrow account to shield assets from creditors. The North Dakota court rejected the suggestion...
No Obstacle To Reinstatement
Posted on April 03, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reinstated an attorney who had been suspended for two years in 2005. The attorney had mishandled an estate matter, charged excessive fees to the estate and had demanded loans from the estate without security or set...
Fee Award Upheld
Posted on April 03, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department upheld a judgment for legal fees and dismissed malpractice counterclaims. As to fee entitlement: The record shows that in December 2003, each defendant signed an agreement with [law firm]plaintiff, acknowledging...
Malpractice Not A Compulsory Couterclaim In Lien Action
Posted on April 03, 2009In a decision released today, the Kansas Supreme Court addressed issues relating to the collateral consequences of an action to enforce an attorneys lien in Missouri : Jerome S. Tilzer, individually and as plaintiff ad litem for Rita Tilzer, Todd...
Cause For Depression
Posted on April 03, 2009The Pennsylvania Supreme Court imposed disbarment in a matter involving misappropriation of entrusted funds. The Disciplinary Board had found that the evidence failed to establish that the misconduct was caused by depression brought on by the strained relationship between his...
Not Lawyer Or Broker
Posted on April 03, 2009An attorney admitted in Nebraska and South Carolina was contacted by the attorney of a person who wished to sell real estate in Costa Rica. The seller agreed to pay a 4% finder's fee to the attorney if he was...
Suspension En Masse
Posted on April 02, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department entered an order today suspended a batch of lawyers for non-compliance with registration requirements: Section 468-a of the Judiciary Law requires every resident and nonresident attorney admitted to practice in...
52 Pick Up
Posted on April 02, 2009The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered the disbarment of an attorney who had been the subject of a wide array of charges alleging ethics violations. The court found that the attorney had racked up 75 ethical violations and that 52 were...
Back To Square One
Posted on April 02, 2009There are relatively few cases that closely examine the procedural aspects of bar discipline. An interesting case decided today by the Oregon Supreme Court held that procedural irregularities merited a remand of findings of misconduct but not dismissal of the...
"The exception proves the rule."
Posted on April 02, 2009That is an expression that is not so nonsensical after all, as Ray Ward notes and links here, to this excellent Snopes reference. It is just a tad incomplete but really makes a valid legal point. [Alan Childress]
Presumptive Sanction Not Imposed
Posted on April 02, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court extended the ongoing suspension of a lawyer for three years based on a felony conviction for filing a false tax return. While the court noted that the presumptive sanction for a felony conviction is disbarment, the...
Are Those Sleek and Tidy Lawyer Offices In the Movies and on TV a Fair Depiction of Reality?
Posted on April 02, 2009Posted by Alan Childress (and Kelly Anders, below) Or are the occasional messy and paper-filled depictions more real? Just how much of a lacuna exists between the representation and the reality of office godliness within the ontology of pop culture...
Yachting Litigation
Posted on April 02, 2009In an appeal to determine eligiblity criteria for the Challenger of Record in the America's Cup, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and reinstated the orders of the Supreme Court. The litigation had its genesis in...
Order To Produce Escrow Records Overturned
Posted on April 01, 2009The Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals conditionally granted mandamus relief to an attorney (not named in the order) who had been the subject of a 2006 bar grievance that alleged failure to account for monies given by a client in...
Still A Judge
Posted on April 01, 2009The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct censured a city court judge who while engaged in a part-time law practice had (1) arranged to have charges against a client sent to a court that had no jurisdiction to handle the...
Ontology for Lawyers 101: Computer Programs, Contracts, and Reality
Posted on April 01, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Bear with me here for a few minutes, because I'm thinking this through in real-time. (Also, for those of you who've complained in the past about my use of big words, you can free free to...
Resume Misconduct Leads To Sanction
Posted on April 01, 2009Another report of discipline from the California Bar Journal notes the sanction of an attorney for a false employment resume: [The attorney] was suspended for two years, stayed, placed on three years of probation with a six-month actual suspension and...
Drugs For Fees
Posted on April 01, 2009More from the April 2009 California Bar Journal: [an attorney] was suspended for three years, stayed, placed on five years of probation with a two-year actual suspension and until he proves his rehabilitation, and he was ordered to take the...
Anger Management
Posted on April 01, 2009The California Bar Journal reports: [an attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on two years of probation and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect Oct. 10, 2008. [He] pleaded no contest...
Permanently Revoked
Posted on April 01, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today permanently revoked the license of attorney George N. Kafantaris of Warren based on findings that he misappropriated funds entrusted to him by two different clients,...
Twice Disbarred
Posted on March 31, 2009An attorney convicted of a series of criminal offenses who was imprisoned and disbarred in New Jersey was also disbarred by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department. The underlying conduct: Respondent's conviction of official misconduct arose...
From Towson Or Timbuktu
Posted on March 31, 2009The Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld the bond forfeiture against a professional surety that resulted from a defendant's failure to appear for trial. The bondsman hired a bounty hunter ("the very term... evokes a quaint nostalgia for a more...
New Judge Censured
Posted on March 31, 2009A press release issued today by the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct reports that a part-time town court judge was censured for reducing speeding charges in five cases without consent of the prosecutor and reduced another speeding charge based...
The Reach Of Rule 8.4(b)
Posted on March 31, 2009Last evening in my American Legal Profession class, we had a lively discussion of the reach of Model Rule 8.4(b), which prohibits criminal conduct that reflects adversely on a lawyers honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects....
Contract Language Controls Fee Dispute
Posted on March 31, 2009In a dispute between lawyers over a $1.9 million award of attorneys' fees in a medical malpractice action, the New York Court of Appeals held that an attorney who had brought in co-counsel to try the case was entitled as...
My Iconoclastic Approach to Contract Theory (or Its Ultimate Failure) - The Financial Crisis Edition
Posted on March 30, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I was reading Bill Saporito's article in the March 19 Time on how AIG got "too big to fail," and one comment jumped out at this contract theorist, particularly after having just recently looked at another...
A Stressful Atmosphere
Posted on March 30, 2009The Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline has just posted its October 2008 decision finding misconduct on the part of an elected judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas. The judge was found to be "habitually and egregiously late...
Credit Or Debit?
Posted on March 30, 2009The Legal Ethics Committee of the District of Columbia Bar opines as follows: A lawyer may accept credit cards from a client for payment of fees, including unearned fees (commonly referred to as a retainer or advance fees), so long...
Suit Against Co-Counsel Not Permitted
Posted on March 30, 2009An attorney representing a client in a medical malpractice action brought in a second attorney as co-counsel. The second attorney assumed primary responsibility for the case with a 50-50 split of the contingent fee. Thereafter, the case settled for less...
Summary Medical Discipline
Posted on March 30, 2009A doctor who had entered an Alford plea to charges that he had sexually assaulted a patient was found by the medical license board to have committed a crime involving moral turpitude. He contended, and the circuit court held, that...
Suing The Complainant
Posted on March 30, 2009An attorney who had been suspended in Colorado for a year and a day violated ethics rules by bringing legal actions against persons who had reported his misconduct, according to a hearing board report imposing additional sanctions. Interestingly, the Colorado...
Relis on Perceptions of the Civil Litigation Process
Posted on March 29, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Tamara Relis, whom I met at the 2007 Faculty Recruitment Conference, has two pieces of good news. First, she's joining the faculty at the Touro Law School next year. Second, she has a book coming out...
Worst Of The Worst
Posted on March 28, 2009The New York Times has an article in today's paper describing the kickback scheme of two Pennsylvania judges to sentence juveniles to a detention facility that paid them for the business. The article cites to a number of "red flags"...
Law Dog and Other Curiosities
Posted on March 28, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Max the Law Dog and I went for a walk today. Here's Max just after marking the Harvard Law School. I believe his comment was "nice shrubs." Just before we got to the Law School, we...
The Wrong Spot
Posted on March 27, 2009The Vermont Professional Conduct Board recently decided a bar discipline case involving the following facts: Respondent is a sole practitioner with one non-lawyer employee. His practice focuses on real estate transactions and personal injury work. Respondent was admitted to the...
Uncovered
Posted on March 27, 2009An insurance company is not obligated to defend claims brought against a law firm that do not involve allegations of negligence or malpractice, according to a decision of the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department: Here, Liberty...
Suspension Results From Dispute With Siblings
Posted on March 27, 2009A family dispute over the guardianship of a lawyer's mother has resulted in a suspension of three months followed by one year probation by the Nebraska Supreme Court. The attorney had opposed the appointment of a guardian and, after her...
"Shocking Disregard"
Posted on March 27, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department ordered the interim suspension for an attorney who had failed to cooperate with an investigation into two complaints alleging possible misuse of entrusted funds: The Committee's motion for an interim...
Monitored Rather Than Revoked
Posted on March 27, 2009An Illinois hearing board concluded that a lawyer's license should be "monitored rather than revoked" in a case where the attorney had diverted to himself over $30,000 in fees, half of which were due to his firm. The lawyer was...
Lawyer Spare That Tree
Posted on March 26, 2009In a collateral attack on convictions for second degree murder, the defendant claimed that his trial counsel had been ineffective for his failure to attempt to retrieve the death-causing bullet from a tree at the crime scene. Counsel did not...
Clerk May Work For Auto Dealership
Posted on March 26, 2009Subject to certain conditions, a clerk-magistrate may also work at an automoblie dealership, according to a recent ethics opinion of the Massachusetts Committee on Ethical Opinions for Clerks: In your letter of December 23, 2008, you request an opinion of...
DA Disbarred
Posted on March 26, 2009The Tennessee Supreme Court disbarred the elected district attorney of the 13th Judicial District who had "knowingly misused and abused his position with the intent to obtain a significant benefit for another, and caused serious injury to the integrity of...
Short Suspension For Abhorrent Actions
Posted on March 26, 2009A 30 day suspension of an attorney was imposed by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in a case where neither the attorney or Bar Counsel had filed an exception to that period of suspension, which had been recommended...
More Misconduct
Posted on March 26, 2009What happens when a lawyer is suspended from practice during an ongoing client representation? The wrong thing, according to an order of a further suspension by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The attorney had undertaken a driving while intoxicated case...
An Invitation From The Center For The Study Of the Legal Profession At Georgetown
Posted on March 26, 2009The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law cordially invites you to attend the inaugural Lecture on the Legal Profession delivered by Theodore Schneyer, Milton O. Riepe Professor of Law, University of Arizona, speaking on the....
Delaware Supreme Court Decision in Ryan v. Lyondell
Posted on March 26, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Courtesy of Steve Davidoff, we've learned that the Delaware Supreme Court has just issued its opinion, reversing the Chancery Court's troubling denial of summary judgment (under §102(b)(7) of the Delaware General Corporation Law) in Ryan v...
It Sure Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Juice
Posted on March 25, 2009Not a legal profession case, but perhaps of interest is a recent decision of the Vermont Supreme Court, holding that putting prison inmates on a Nutraloaf diet constitutes punishment and obligates the state to accord the protections of due process....
Schlag and Posner on the Legal Academy (Georgetown Law Journal)
Posted on March 25, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I know there are a lot of practitioners who read this blog for Mike Frisch's seemingly endless supply of lawyers behaving badly, and whose eyes glaze over when "Posted by Jeff Lipshaw" appears in the RSS...
Your Face Is Familiar
Posted on March 25, 2009During the course of a divorce proceeding, the wife sought an order of protection from alleged abuse on the part of the husband. A hearing was scheduled and husband's attorney sought a continuance due to a previously-scheduled court appearence. The...
Work Product
Posted on March 25, 2009When an employee of the YMCA was accused of improper touching of minors, the Y's general counsel recommended that its Board hire an outside entity to make proposals regarding policies and procedures in light of the allegations. The board followed...
Reasonableness Remand
Posted on March 25, 2009The New Jersey Appellate Division remanded a matter for a proper determination of whether the fees awardrd to class action counsel were reasonable. The underlying class claims had been brought by doctors who had rendered services to patient-members of the...
Lost Will, Lost License
Posted on March 25, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The license of Cincinnati attorney Darrell Brown has been indefinitely suspended by the Supreme Court of Ohio for misappropriating client funds entrusted to him, failing to administer a decedent?s estate after...
Almost Suspended
Posted on March 25, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court publicly reprimanded an attorney for "failing to comply with an opposing party's discovery request and with court orders to provide discovery, and in making misrepresentations to the court that he had complied." The misconduct had taken...
Harboring Alien Leads To Reprimand
Posted on March 24, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department imposed a reprimand as reciprocal discipline based on a Connecticut reprimand. The attorney had been convicted of the federal criminal offense of harboring an alien, who had served as a...
Reinstatement Denied in Light Of Restitution Issues
Posted on March 24, 2009The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the petition for reinstatement of a former attorney who had been appointed to represent Milwaukee Cheese and Sheboygan Sausage in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding. He embezzled over $550,000 of entrusted funds to support his...
Failure To Supervise
Posted on March 24, 2009The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today affirmed a verdict against Allen Iverson for injuries caused when his bodyguard attacked the plaintiff in a brawl that had erupted at Eyebar, a Washington, D.C. nightclub.....
Not Ineffective Assistance
Posted on March 24, 2009The United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel by the Ninth Circuit. Writing for the court, Justice Thomas concluded that that the defendant had not only failed to establish that the state court's...
Where There's a Will There's No Way
Posted on March 24, 2009A lawyer who negligently fails to draft a will for a client is not liable for legal malpractice based on claims made by the intended beneficiaries of the estate, according to a decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court. The...
The Benefits Of Reporting Yourself
Posted on March 24, 2009The South Carolina Supreme Court reprimanded an attorney who had self-reported to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel his participation in a series of what uurned out to be shady real estate transactions on behalf of clients. The key facts: Respondent...
Privilege to Vent Frustration
Posted on March 23, 2009The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court addressed the application of attorney-client privilege law when a client make threats in a case decided today: This case requires us to decide whether the attorney-client privilege applies where a client leaves messages on his...
Enjoining Bar Prosecution
Posted on March 23, 2009The North Carolina Supreme Court remanded a case where an attorney had sued the North Carolina State Bar on a theory that it had acted vindictively in filed sequential actions against him. He had brought a section 1983 action and...
Bad Treatment
Posted on March 23, 2009The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals held that a criminal defendant who had pleaded guilty to a number of charges including impersonating a medical doctor was not entitled to any relief from the sentence imposed by the trial court. The...
No Civil Claim Based On Tough Deposition Questioning
Posted on March 22, 2009The New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against an attorney and her law firm by the opposing parties in litigation based on allegations of deposition misconduct. The clients' child had been born with medical problems...
One Angry Man
Posted on March 22, 2009The California State Bar Court Review Department has recommended the disbarment of an attorney who as a trial juror had engineered the conclusion of a medical negligence trial in order to break a deadlock and return to his law practice....
Disbarred Lawyer Sanctioned For Unauthorized Practice
Posted on March 20, 2009The Ohio Supreme Court web page reports a significant sanction for unauthorized practice of law: The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that Bruce Andrew Brown of Cleveland engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in his dealings with five...
Fire Leads To Conviction, Revocation
Posted on March 20, 2009From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today permanently revoked the law license of former Fairfield County Municipal Court Judge Don S. McAuliffe for multiple violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility and....
No Malpractice For Reasonable, Tactical Litigation Decision
Posted on March 19, 2009The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed an order granting summary judgment to Finnegan Henderson LLP in a case where former client Biomet Inc. had sued for legal malpractice. Biomet, a manufacturer of orthopedic devices, alleged that the law...
Stop Writing When Time Is Called
Posted on March 19, 2009The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department declined to admit an applicant for admission who had passed the February 2005 New York examination. The character and fitness problem related to a finding of misconduct in taking the...
Who Pays?
Posted on March 19, 2009A case decided today by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court holds: It is well settled that an insured is entitled to recover reasonable attorney's fees and expenses incurred in successfully establishing the insurer's duty to defend under the terms of...
Lawyer-Juror's Article Leads To Reversal Of Judgment
Posted on March 19, 2009The New Jersey Appellate Division reversed an $876,000 plaintiff's verdict in a slip-and-fall case where the plaintiff had fallen while looking for pantyhose in aisle five of a supermarket owned by the defendant. The court did not conclude that, standing...
Suing Complainant Results In Discipline
Posted on March 18, 2009In a matter of first impression, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that an attorney could be subject to professional discipline for a violation of the immunity provisions of the rules of disciplinary enforcement. The provision provides immunity from civil suits...
For Better Or Worse, For Richer Or Poorer
Posted on March 18, 2009The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility censured an attorney who had accepted an accident case on referral from an accident resolution company. The referral violated Tennessee RPC 7.6 (b) (referrals from imtermediary organizations). Further, the attorney's written retainer agreement contained...
Disbarment For Post-Suspension Practice
Posted on March 18, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals held that disbarment was the appropriate sanction where an attorney had engaged in unauthorized practice after suspension: "...the Court, as the promulgator and guardian of the proper standards for the practice of law, must act...
No Conflict
Posted on March 18, 2009The Illinois Review Board affirmed a finding that an attorney had not engaged in a concurrent conflict of interest in representing two defendants in an eviction action. He had only communicated with one of the clients, who it turned out...
New IOLTA Rules Proposed For D.C.
Posted on March 17, 2009The District of Columbia Bar's disciplinary rules revision committee has proposed amendment to Rule 1.15 with the stated goal of increasing revenue generated by IOLTA funds. A summary of the proposed changes: Change the existing ?opt out? IOLTA program into...
Return To The Fold Proposed
Posted on March 17, 2009A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended a one year suspension retroactive to a suspension imposed in 1997 and two years probation when a final order is issued, in a case involving multiple acts of misconduct including concersion, "stiffing" health care...
No Class
Posted on March 17, 2009The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended the disbarment of an attorney for misconduct in representing clients in a proposed class action lawsuit after class certification had been denied. The board found that the attorney had: ...violated duties to his...
Competent To Stand Trial
Posted on March 17, 2009In an opinion issued today, the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of a defendant who had claimed denial of his right to self-representation. the defendant was found competent to stand trial but denied his request to represent himself because...
Recovery And Readmission
Posted on March 17, 2009An Illinois hearing board has recommended that a disbarred attorney be reinstated. The attorney had become addicted to crack cocaine and been disbarred in Tennessee for illegal drug use (he was never convicted of a drug offense), practicing law while...
"We Have Met Madoff and He is Ours"
Posted on March 17, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I'm speaking at a University of Dayton Law School symposium entitled "Fallout from the Bailout" on Friday, March 20, and have posted on SSRN the essay on which the talk is based: Disclosure and Judgment: "We...
ALI-ABA Offers Two Ethics CLEs March 24 and March 31, 2009
Posted on March 17, 2009Posted by Alan Childress By telephone or audio webcast, ALI-ABA has two upcoming CLE programs of interest to those following legal ethics or needing ethics hours: Lawyer Ethics and Risk Management in an Economic Downturn, Tues., March 24, at 1:00...
The Second Time Around
Posted on March 17, 2009An attorney whose previous disciplinary case made him famous--James Himmel-- is the subject of fresh findings of misconduct by an Illinois hearing board. Unlike the groundbreaking case imposing discipline for failure to report the misconduct of his client's prior counsel,...
Save the Sarcasm
Posted on March 16, 2009The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered disbarment of an attorney who had previously been disciplined in that state. The Bar's Executive Director had filed a series of amendments to the allegations after ihis initial charging document. The court rejected the procedural...
The High Road
Posted on March 16, 2009A Virginia lawyer was reprimanded with terms in a case where he represented a divorcing wife. The husband's attorney filed a counterclaim alleging that the wife had "romantic encounters...with a person known to both parties. That person was the Respondent...
Third Time Gets Reported
Posted on March 16, 2009A Louisiana lawyer was suspended for a year and a day for his third alcohol-related driving offense. He also engaged in misconduct in that he had failed to report the first two offenses. The discipline was imposed by consent. (Mike...
New Bar Discipline Appeal Rule For Massachusetts
Posted on March 16, 2009The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has issued an order modifying the appeal process from a single justice to the full court. The court's stated aim is to expedite such appeals while protecting the substantial rights of the lawyer. The new...
Dagny Taggart Committed Securities Fraud?
Posted on March 15, 2009Posted by Jeff Lipshaw For reasons too irrelevant to state, I've been re-reading a canon of my youth, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I guess it took about forty years since I first read it, and teaching securities regulation, to realize...
Say Uncle
Posted on March 13, 2009The South Carolina Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct has issued an opinion concluding that a judge may not preside over criminal cases when his uncle by marriage is the chief of police. The inquiry came from a municipal judge considering...
Since Machiavelli's Time
Posted on March 13, 2009The Maryland Court of Appeals begins an opinion with a quote from Machiavelli. Noting that he had suffered the rack for his support as a public official for an administration that had been replaced, the court "considers what has changed...
Excessive Rhetoric Harmless Error
Posted on March 13, 2009The Kansas Supreme Court found plain but harmless error in a prosecutor's closing argument in a felony murder trial. The prosecutor had argued: "They [sic] saying that Brandi shook the baby when? She shook the baby that night while she's...
Judicial Neglect
Posted on March 13, 2009The Indiana Supreme Court considered judicial misconduct allegations in two consolidated cases involving findings that a judge and a commissioner of the same court had delayed excessively in ruling on post-conviction motions. The judge was suspended for 60 days and...
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