Legal Profession Blog: Academic

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

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

Kazakhstan Law School Seeks Dean

Posted on April 06, 2010
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw The School of Law of the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics, and Strategic Research in Almaty, the major commercial center of Kazakhstan, is looking for a dean. Here's the job description (from AcademicKeys.com): The Kazakhstan Institute...

Support For Immigration Clients "Fraught With Danger"

Posted on April 05, 2010
The District of Columbia Bar Legal Ethics Committee has recently opined on the practice by immigration attorneys of executing affidavits of support for their clients. The conclusion: Lawyers in immigration matters may not execute an Affidavit of Support (U...

Plot To Maim, Murder Prosecutors Ends in Conviction

Posted on April 05, 2010
The Rhode Island Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of a defendant charged with soliciting the murder of the state Attorney General and the felonious assault of the Assistant Attorney General who was responsible for his prosecution. The defendant had...

No Gifts For Judges

Posted on April 05, 2010
The Massachusetts Judical Ethics Committee has opined that a judge may not accept a monetary award in recognition of community service, even if the award is donated to charity. The facts: ...the program from which you will receive the monetary...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

No Mandamus For Bar Complainant

Posted on April 02, 2010
The West Virginia Supreme Court has denied mandamus relief to a person who had filed a bar complaint against his estranged spouse. The complainant sought to compel the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to remove items from the file relating to...

"Stepping Away" To Disbarment

Posted on April 02, 2010
The Indiana Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney who had been suspended for six months with automatic reinstatement in October 2007. The suspension didn't seem to register with him. He wrote his clients a letter that indicated he was "stepping...

"Sincere Regret" Avoids Suspension

Posted on April 02, 2010
An attorney found to have engaged in inflated billings in three matters was publicly censured by the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department. The court considered a number of mitigating factors in determining that a suspension was...

Stupid lawyer tricks, part n

Posted on April 02, 2010
From the Attorney e-Newsletter of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania's Disciplinary Board's March 2010 issue: Also, 12 attorneys paid their annual fees with checks marked as drawn on a trust or escrow account, prompting an immediate inquiry from Disciplinary Counsel...

Plain Error

Posted on April 01, 2010
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed a conviction for assaulting a police officer and remanded the case for a new trial. The trial had recessed for the weekend with the defendant on the witness stand, having completed his...

Conviction For Providing Classified Information To Blogger Results in Interim Suspension

Posted on April 01, 2010
The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department granted a motion to interim suspend an attorney convicted of disclosure of classified information, a federal felony. The attorney was employed by the FBI as a linguist. He "provided classified...

Ineffective Assistance Claim Sustained

Posted on April 01, 2010
The Delaware Supreme Court has reversed a conviction for felony murder and related offenses based on a finding of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The attorney had failed to request a clearly-available instruction on the special credibility problems with accomplice...

Three Documents

Posted on April 01, 2010
The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended a partially-stayed two year suspension for two attorneys in connection with their joint representation of a father accused by his daughter of a sex crime. The bar complaint had been filed by the...

Sanction For Partnership With Non-Lawyer And Other Misconduct

Posted on April 01, 2010
A report of a bar discipline decision from the April 2010 online edition of the California Bar Journal: [An attorney] was suspended for three years, stayed, placed on five years of probation with a 90-day actual suspension and was ordered...

"Friending" And Florida Ethics

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has now weighed in on "friending" by judicial assistants. The opinion: Several opinions clearly hold that judicial assistants are not subject to the Code of Judicial Conduct. See JEAC Op. 95-12 (where a majority...

Limits Of Free Speech

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Illinois Review Board has recommended a suspension of two years and until futher order ("UFO" in disciplinary parlance) for a variety of ethics violations that included frivilous litigation and baseless accusations against judges. The United States Court of Appeals...

Reintatement Denied To Attorney Who Represented Law Student At Hearing While High On Drugs

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board affirmed a hearing panel order denying the second reinstatement petition of an attorney suspended for two years in March 2005. The suspension order was entered five years ago today. Among the violations (related to the...

Lipshaw's Three Laws of Stress

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Three Laws of Stress (as observed in Type A people): 1. Stress will expand to fill the available psychic capacity. 2. Stress is infinitely expandable regardless of the initial stress energy. 3. There is a minimal level of stress...

Boston College Law Review - Tarkington on the Right to Impugn Judicial Integrity

Posted on March 30, 2010
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Caitlin Mulligan, the EIC of the Boston College Law Review, sent us a nice note highlighting Margaret Tarkington's (BYU, left) new article A Free Speech Right to Impugn Judicial Integrity in Court Proceedings. Before we get...

Reading Arguably Privileged E-Mails Was Unethical

Posted on March 30, 2010
The New Jersey Supreme Court held today that an employee "could reasonably expect that e-mail communications with her lawyer through her personal, password-protected, web-based e-mail account would remain private, and that sending and receiving them using a company laptop did...

Not Fit For Reinstatement

Posted on March 30, 2010
The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the reinstatement petition of an attorney who had been suspended due to an alcohol-related medical incapacity in 1998. The petitioner had suffered a relapse into drinking in October 2005 and claimed that she had been...

Not In Good Standing

Posted on March 29, 2010
The Connecticut Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal of a case brought by a student who had attended law school at Quinnipiac University. The student requested that the university issue certificates of good standing in order for her to enroll and...

A Gross Misjudgment

Posted on March 29, 2010
The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department has suspended an attorney for four years. The misconduct? Among other things, the attorney had his clients convey title to their home to him in order to avoid foreclosure and...

The Instant Misconduct

Posted on March 29, 2010
In a case involving an attorney who had been subject to two prior informal admonitions ana a public censure, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reduced the sanction of a two year suspension proposed by its Disciplinary Board and ordered a suspension...

Grade Litigation Goes Nowhere

Posted on March 29, 2010
A recent decision from the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department: Plaintiff, a transfer student at defendant law school, commenced this action alleging, inter alia, that defendant breached an implied contract of good faith and fair dealing...

The Difference Between Being a GC and a CEO

Posted on March 28, 2010
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Unfortunately, I can't provide a link because the online version of today's New York Times doesn't seem to include it, but the second page of Sunday Business is the "Corner Office" interview with Debra L. Lee,...

Over Employed

Posted on March 27, 2010
In a time where legal work is hard to find, an attorney in Colorado was found to have engaged in dishonesty and fraud by working at two law firms (he was a partner in one of the firms) at the...

Email Breaches Duty Of Confidentiality

Posted on March 27, 2010
A Wyoming attorney who was practicing before the Colorado courts was suspended for a year and a day in Colorado. The attorney was charged with ethics violations after she undertook a divorce case. When informed that the client no longer...

Emory Transactional Education Conference ? Registration Open

Posted on March 26, 2010
Tina Stark passes along the news that the web site for Emory Law's conference - Transactional Education: What?s Next? - is open for registration. Registration The registration fee for the conference is $179.00. It includes a pre-conference lunch, snacks, and...

No Wasted Resources

Posted on March 26, 2010
The Indiana Supreme Court has accepted a conditional agreement resolving charges against an elected judge who employed his spouse as the city court clerk. The judge was charged with five felony theft counts "stemming from allegations that Respondent exerted unauthorized...

"Unable To Properly Manage His Busy Law Practice"

Posted on March 25, 2010
The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine ordered a six-month stayed suspension with conditions and stated that any failure to adhere to the conditions may be treated as contempt "and further post-judgment proceedings." The attorney was admitted in December 2003 and...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Update on AILF's Legal Action Center Visa Bulletin Litigation (Updated 7/10/07)
The following is the latest update from AILF regarding its pening ...

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center Legislative Forecast
The ILRC Forecast on Immigration ReformJudith Golub, Executive Dir...

The Christian Legal Society and "discrimation": Response to Susan
In response to Susan's post, I'm inclined to think that, yes, the ...

Stacy Scnheider Legal Commentator Apprentice

Catholic Legal Theory and life and death
Tom Berg’s question regarding the propriety or not of capital pu...