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Legal ethics

Let’s talk about the 3.3 of 303 Creative

So, for folks of my political persuasion, the last week of the Supreme Court term was a real gut punch. Today’s post is not about arguing with anyone over whether the outcome of the 303 Creative decision was or was not correct and is not even about whether the Plaintiff in 303 Creative should have […]

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♫ Everybody Saudi Sun Tonight ♫

I promise at some point I will write something not about a lawyer getting sanctioned by courts, but it won’t be today. Today’s post is prompted by a ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dropping a (potentially more than $250,000) sanctions hammer on a lawyer and referring that lawyer to the bar for […]

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Legal ethics

Certificate of Consternation

This post will be short (fingers crossed) and sweet bitter. I’ve written pretty extensively lately about the two lawyers (now 3 lawyers) getting a lot of negative publicity for misusing ChatGPT and, as a result, filing documents with courts containing imaginary legal authorities. I will not repeat my points about the failings of those lawyers. […]

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Legal ethics

Use the right tool for the job.

If you need a very short version of everything I am about to write, it would go a little something like this. Don’t use a calculator to try to determine whether you have spelled a word correctly. If you do that, don’t blame the calculator because you are the problem. Even though it all transpired […]

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Legal ethics

Things You Stone Kolb Can’t Do.

So, today’s post involves an ongoing (recently initiated in fact) disciplinary matter. Accordingly, the details available are based entirely on the one-sided positions set out in the disciplinary complaint. The ABA Journal has run a story about it, but once again, it first got on my radar screen because of discussion over at The Legal […]

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. Legal ethics

Someone finally faces consequences for gaslighting all of us.

So, if you’re here at any point today or tomorrow, you are likely someone who has already heard the news of Rudy Giuliani, attorney for the former POTUS, being suspended from the practice of law in New York. A copy of the 30+ page opinion imposing an interim suspension on Mr. Giuliani is available at […]

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. Legal ethics

“Here’s a new post.” (cleaned up)

I have tried for the better part of a week to convince myself that I needed to write something about the most recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinion which was released in February 2021 and which attempts to explain what “materially adverse” means in the context of ABA Model Rule 1.9 (and Model Rule 1.18). I […]

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. Legal ethics

Just the normal scrutiny.

I need something fun in my life at the moment to help deal with some of the insanity that is all around us all. So, let’s tell something of a non-linear story about how haphazardly the disciplinary rules can be enforced as against lawyers. (Okay, so maybe you and I see “fun” differently.) Typically, many […]

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Judicial Ethics

The good and bad of social media on display

Today’s title refers to two developments worth writing about that caught my attention in the last little bit that only have the issue of social media in common.  I will try to let the reader decided which is which (or if both are both) in due course. The first development is an example of a lawyer […]

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. Legal ethics

Theater of the absurd.

This is something of a stretch from what I normally write about, but sometimes you simply have to write about something and simply ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Recently, an article made the rounds written by Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker who posited that two recent events were the clearest sign yet that we […]