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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

No Misconduct Found

Posted on July 17, 2008
In a disciplinary case where the accused had "represented entities that invested and participated in a tax avoidance enterprise created by Walter J. Hoyt, III," the Supreme Court of Oregon today held that the Bar had failed to prove any...

Spousal Abuse Evidence Properly Admitted In Bar Case

Posted on July 17, 2008
The Minnesota Supreme Court ordered an attorney indefinitely suspended for a minimum of six months. The attorney and his wife had emigrated from Ethiopia and he was admitted in 2001, focusing on personal injury law. The wife sought a civil...

Unjudicial Behavior Charged

Posted on July 17, 2008
Hat tip to the ABA Journal for their post about judicial misconduct charges filed against a judge of the Allen Superior Court in Indiana. It is alleged that the judge attended a court proceeding in the courtroom of another judge...

Suspension For Unauthorized Practice

Posted on July 17, 2008
The Wisconsin Supreme Court approved a stipulated 60 day suspension with restitution in a matter that arose in the wake of the attorney's earlier temporary suspension for failure to cooperate with a disciplinary investigation. While suspended, the attorney appeared in...

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Denial Of Access To Medical Records Increases Sanction

Posted on July 17, 2008
An Arizona attorney found in violation of ethics rules in 2004 went on inactive status in 2005. The attorney was asked to but declined to sign a probation contract on return to active status and refused to sign a consent...

Disbarment And Restitution

Posted on July 17, 2008
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred and ordered restitution in a matter where the attorney had a client representative sign over a check in excess of $241,000 to him. The court accepted a Board on Professional Responsibility (the...

Ethics Of Lobbying Lawyers

Posted on July 16, 2008
The Legal Ethics Committee of the District of Columbia Bar has recently issued an opinion that discusses the ethical implications of lawyers who engage in lobbying activities. The committee concludes as follows: Most of the conflict rules apply to lawyer-lobbyists...

Three SSRN Papers Explore Professional Issues Relating to Jewish Thought and Socialization

Posted on July 16, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress Three articles recently posted to SSRN's Law & Soc'y: The Legal Prof'n journal (edited by Bill Henderson) are tangentially related but certainly on topic for this blog. One is from 2002 while in the midst of...

Follow Up To Jeff's Post on Lawyer Jack Swarbrick's Move To Notre Dame

Posted on July 16, 2008
Jeff's post yesterday seemed to scoop even ESPN, and now he is quoted in the Chicago Tribune story, Notre Dame's Next AD, Jack Swarbrick, A Big-Picture Specialist. [Alan Childress]

McMillian on Lawyer Depression and Media Depictions

Posted on July 16, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress Attorney depression and related mental health issues are a recurring topic on this blog and others (e.g., Mike's June 20 post on a Pennsylvania bar matter, and his this morning on a Missouri case involving bipolar...

A Very Nice Thing To Say

Posted on July 16, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress After our LPB post on the near-execution of Charles Hood by Texas -- and Andy Perlman's free-ranging and incisive post on the subject at Legal Ethics Forum -- the blog Capital Defense Weekly called these posts...

Bipolar Condition Causes Misappropriation, Disbarment Not Imposed

Posted on July 16, 2008
In an important decision involving the sanction for misappropriation caused by bipolar disorder that is presently controlled by medication, a 4-3 decision of the Missouri Supreme Court held that an indefinite suspension with right to apply after three years, rather...

Being on Both Sides of a Litigation Not Entirely Without Precedent

Posted on July 16, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress As for my earlier assertion that having an interest in both sides of an appeal is entirely without precedent, I retract somewhat. Consider Chico Marx cross-examining himself in Duck Soup, which required him to ask the...

The Importance of Proofreading Appendices

Posted on July 16, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress Quoting West's "Headnote of the Day" for July 9, Ray Ward and a commenter at the (new) legal writer blog observe that slapping on appendices to a filing is often hurried and harried -- yet may...

Clearly Excessive

Posted on July 16, 2008
A Massachusetts attorney was subject to an agreed-upon public reprimand for charging a clearly excessive fee in a divorce matter. Initially, the matter appeared to be uncontested and the client was charged a $2,500 non-refundable flat fee. When it appeared...

The Definition of Chutzpah or I've-Seen-It-All-Now: Being On Both Sides of Appeal. Cal Court Calls It A Disregard of Duties "Without Precedent."

Posted on July 16, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress If it were a Hollywood script, I would laugh at its utter incredibility: only Hollywood would unblinkingly make an attorney have a litigation interest in both sides of the appeal (and treat it as clever lawyering)....

Need Your Help: Advice For A NY Bar Applicant With A Shoplifting Arrest/Expungement

Posted on July 15, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress Calling Mike Frisch, John Steele, Brad Wendel, and other editors or readers who have experience in bar admission matters. Here is an email I received from someone I will call Rose Marie, just because I like...

Hold The Applause

Posted on July 15, 2008
In a case that explores "the intersection between zealous representation and an attorney's obligation of candor to a tribunal," the New Jersey Supreme Court held the the failure of an attorney to disclose an adverse court decision (an unpublished opinion...

Fiduciary Breach Not Established

Posted on July 15, 2008
The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided another interesting case today involving liability claims by a client against its former corporate counsel ("Krug"). The court concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a claimed breach of fiduciary duty and an insufficient basis...

Jack Swarbrick, Lawyer, as Notre Dame's Athletic Director

Posted on July 15, 2008
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw The sports media all over the place is reporting that Jack Swarbrick, Stanford Law '80, a partner at Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis, and a good friend, is about to be named the new athletic director...

Glowing In the Dark

Posted on July 15, 2008
In a matter involving agreed-upon discipline, the Wisconsin Supreme Court today accepted the joint recommendation of a 60-day suspension for misconduct that appears to merit far harsher discipline. The attorney had been retained to represent the plaintiff in an auto...

The Mortgage Mess and Conflict of Interest

Posted on July 15, 2008
[Posted by Bill Henderson] Looking for a primer on the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac mortgage mess? Over at Econbrower, UCSD economist James Hamilton has an excellent detailed post that lays out the problem. In a nutshell, it comes down...

"The Good Funds Rule"

Posted on July 15, 2008
The South Carolina Supreme Court suspended an attorney for 30 days for misconduct that included a failure to insure that funds deposited in escrow were properly credited prior to writing checks. As a result, several checks were returned for insufficient...

Claims Rejected

Posted on July 14, 2008
A hearing committee of the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended a four month suspension with reinstatement conditioned of proof of present fitness of an attorney for misconduct that included incompetent representation that had harmed clients, false statements to...

Counsel's Unkept Promise Justifies Late Filing

Posted on July 14, 2008
The Supreme Court of Missouri reversed and remanded the dismissal of a claim for postconviction relief filed by a defendant serving a 30 year prison sentence. After the conviction was affirmed, the defendant was contacted by a public defender who...

Legal Secretary Blows Whistle, Lawyer Disbarred

Posted on July 14, 2008
A single justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has approved a stipulated waiver of bar disciplinary proceedings and ordered the disbarment of an attorney who had initiated the investigation by a self-report. He had deposited firm fees into a...

Reciprocal Discipline For Dentists

Posted on July 14, 2008
The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court considered a series of questions relating to the proposed reciprocal discipline of a dentist in light of actions taken in Rhode Island. The court remanded the matter to a single justice of the court,...

New England White: Carter as LeCarre?

Posted on July 12, 2008
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I liked Stephen Carter's The Emperor of Ocean Park a lot, but I lost track, in the hubbub of the last year, of his second novel, New England White (New York: Knopf, 2007), which I finished...

Right To Unconflicted Counsel

Posted on July 11, 2008
The Kansas Court of Appeals held today that a trial court had abused its discretion by allowing a conflicted public defender to represent a client seeking to withdraw his guilty plea on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel: we...

Reinstatement Petition Denied

Posted on July 11, 2008
The Tennessee Supreme Court denied a petition for reinstatement of a disbarred attorney who had been convicted of bribery and conspiracy to bribe as a result of attempting to persuade a witness in a first degree murder trial to recant...

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