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Academic

Legal Profession Blog

Cover legal ethics, bar discipline, business practice, the tension between the bar and the academy, ethical theory, and comparative legal professions.
By Alan Childress, Mike Frisch, and Jeff Lipshaw

Post Frequency: 40.8/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 14:56:26

Intemperate Remarks Charges Filed

Posted on August 14, 2008
The Illinois ARDC has filed charges alleging misconduct in a custody battle, and an administrative proceeding. The mother in the custody case had won custody and thereafter remarried. The father retained the accused attorney to initiate proceedings based on the...

Clearly Excessive Fee Leads To Suspension

Posted on August 14, 2008
In a 5-2 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court suspended an attorney for one year with six months stayed on probation in a case where the attorney had consulted with two business partners for two hours and thereafter pressed for payment...

Bad Deed

Posted on August 14, 2008
The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a five-year suspension of an attorney, rejecting a referee's conclusion that he had acted with subjective good faith and should not be disciplined in the following actions: On May...

Issue Moot

Posted on August 14, 2008
In an opinion filed on August 11, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dismissed as moot a challenge to the issuance of a grand jury subpoena to defense counsel's investigator in a criminal investigation: The petitioner was charged in the District...

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Free Agency, Faculties, Law Firms, and Businesses: A Comment for Bill Henderson

Posted on August 13, 2008
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Bill Henderson cross-posted his usual massively insightful and deftly written analysis on "faculty free agency" over at ELS, and I posted an equally long comment over there. I repeat here some thoughts on the problem and...

Law Professor Free Agency and "School-Specific" Capital

Posted on August 13, 2008
[posted by Bill Henderson, cross-posted to ELS Blog] Several bloggers have noted Clayton Gillette's recent article, Law School Faculty as Free Agents, 17 J. Contemp. Leg. Issues 213 (2008). See, e.g., Paul Caron, Larry Ribstein, Al Brophy, and Paul Secunda...

If Joe Camel Worked Selling Cigs to Kids, Then Canadian Club on Facebook Is Awesome!

Posted on August 13, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress My teen has Facebook. Your teen has Facebook. Adults can get it too (even lawyers), but I bet the main demographic actually using it is age 15-25. The only adults I know who got it were...

Lax Oversight

Posted on August 13, 2008
The web page of the Ohio Supreme Court has a summary of a decision issued today: The law license of Lancaster attorney Lawrence M. Maley has been suspended for 18 months, with the final six months stayed on conditions, for...

Official Misconduct

Posted on August 13, 2008
The New Jersey Appellate Division today affirmed the conviction of a volunteer firefighter for calling in false alarms. The court concluded that the offense involved "official misconduct" and that the defendant received a "benefit" from the gratification of responding to...

The Buck Passes Here

Posted on August 13, 2008
The Washington Post, in its coverage of Attorney General Mukasey's speech to the American Bar Association, reports that: ...an official in the Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility said the unit has notified bar associations of its findings against five...

Bias On The Bench

Posted on August 13, 2008
A juvenile court judge in Tennessee was censured for his treatment of litigants who were "illegal aliens, children of illegal aliens, or perceived by [the judge] as being illegal aliens." Among the actions taken were declaring children as abused and....

Judicial Misconduct Charges In Tennessee

Posted on August 12, 2008
Tennessee Disciplinary Counsel has filed misconduct charges against a general sessions court judge. The charges allege that the judge had referred litigants to a private probation service pursuant to a Supreme Court rule that forbids referrals based on nepotism and...

Ohio Mentor Program

Posted on August 12, 2008
The Ohio Supreme Court has announced a new mentoring program that will match experienced lawyers with newly-admitted members of the Ohio Bar: The Lawyer to Lawyer Mentoring Program is a one-year voluntary program for new lawyers designed to help ease...

Mandatory Malpractice Proposal For Virginia Lawyers

Posted on August 12, 2008
The web page of the Virginia State Bar has a post from the past chair of the committee that has studied and proposed mandatory malpractice insurance for bar members. The proposed rule is set forth and summarized as follows: The...

Movie Sanction

Posted on August 11, 2008
The Arizona Disciplinary Commission has recommended that an attorney be suspended for 30 days followed by one year of probation. Among the conditions imposed is a requirement that the attorney review a CLE videotape of The Ten Deadly Sins of...

Atomic Bomb Fizzles

Posted on August 11, 2008
In litigation against an attorney sued for attempted deceit of the New York Supreme Court and successful deceit of the Appellate Division, First Department, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit certified two questions of law to...

More Both Sides Now

Posted on August 11, 2008
The New York Appellate Division for the Fourth Judicial Department sanctioned an attorney who had represented both the buyer and seller in a real estate transaction. While both parties had consented to the joint representation, the attorney had failed to...

Contingent Fee Provision Questioned

Posted on August 11, 2008
A decision of the full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court imposed an admonition on an attorney, declining Bar Counsel's request to impose more severe discipline: Bar counsel appeals from the decision of the single justice dismissing the petition for discipline of...

Model Law Firm Rejection Letter, and a Classic Practical Joke

Posted on August 10, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress Beyond our previous posts here and here on [true] rejection letters from law firms, consider this model response letter published in '05 by Harvard Law Record: Dear Ms./Mr. My Firm is Too Good For You: Thank...

Unauthorized Communication

Posted on August 08, 2008
An Illinois hearing board has recommended a 45-day suspension of an attorney who was found to have violated Rule 4.2 (unauthorized communication with represented party) by interviewing a defendant separately charged in a criminal case involving first degree murder out...

Dangers Of Self-Representation

Posted on August 08, 2008
A complaint filed by the Illinois ARDC alleges that intemperate conduct by an attorney representing herself in matters related to a marriage dissolution violated ethics rules: Since at least May 2004 through October 2006, Respondent represented herself in certain post-judgment...

The Ostrich Approach

Posted on August 07, 2008
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted a recommendation (appended to the court order) for a suspension of a year and a day of an attorney who had been the subject of an informal admonition in February 2007 for commingling and other...

Insufficient Evidence Of Moral Change

Posted on August 07, 2008
An attorney who had been indefinitely suspended in 1991 was denied reinstatement by the Minnesota Supreme Court. The court concluded that he had not demonstrated the "requisite moral change" and competence to be restored to practice. A family law solo...

Unauthorized Disclosures

Posted on August 07, 2008
The Arizona Disciplinary Commission recently approved a hearing officer's report that had recommended censure of an attorney who had retained a doctor to research and review medical records of cases involving his clients and potential clients. The doctor sued the...

"Not Fit To Practice Law"

Posted on August 07, 2008
Another day, another permanent disbarment, from the Ohio Supreme Court. This case involved an attorney with a prior disciplinary record who was found to have engaged in a prohibited business transaction with a client. The misconduct is described on the...

Non-Compliance With New York Retainer Filing Requirement May Negate Fee Claims

Posted on August 07, 2008
The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department recently held that the failure to timely file a retainer agreement, as required by law, is generally fatal to a claim for attorneys fees between lawyers: With one exception, the...

Shaken Baby Disciplinary Charges

Posted on August 06, 2008
The Illinois ARDC has recently filed a complaint alleging that a lawyer "violently shook" one of his five-week old twin sons, which led to a cerebral hemorrage. The child showed signs of spasms the next day during brunch at a...

Halverson re-election riddle

Posted on August 06, 2008
In Nevada, we're watching the judicial discipline hearing of Judge Elizabeth Halverson, who's been accused of, inter alia, making her bailiff give her foot rubs, falling asleep on the bench, eating with jurors during a criminal trial, and putting her...

Malpractice Verdict Overturned

Posted on August 06, 2008
In a legal malpractice case predicated on the theory that the client would have done better at a trial than in settlement, the Ohio Supreme Court held that: ...the client must prove both a) that he would have prevailed if...

No Fourth Chance

Posted on August 06, 2008
The Ohio Supreme Court ordered permanent disbarment as the sanction for an attorney's third brush with bar discipline. Suspensions had been imposed in both earlier cases. The court's web page summarized the misconduct found in this matter as follows: In...

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