Categories
Legal ethics

New York States of Mind

Let’s end 2023 on a high note, shall we? Governor Hochul must be high. She just vetoed a bill that would have finally ended New York’s requirement that New York lawyers have to have an office in New York. Yes, you heard that right. Despite all of the talk in the legal profession of the […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Libertarians + Access to Justice = Change?

First of all, I know I am long overdue for new content here. There have been quite a few things that caught my eye that I wanted to write about, but there were so many to choose from it got into a weird, overwhelming, and highly unusual sort of “writer’s block” situation. Second, some anniversaries […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Kudos to the TN BPR – Giving Public Comment Its Due

So, you can consider this my “commitment” to always writing about new Formal Ethics Opinions that get released in Tennessee when they go through the public comment process. I put commitment in quotes because, at this point, it is only the second time it has ever happened. But it’s the first time where public comments […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Dot. Dot.Dash (3 updates)

Three updates for you on things that all managed to catch my eye at the same time and all fall into the “I’ve written about this before” category. First, there has now been a ruling in that MSG case where the lawyers for MSG were badly misusing RPC 4.2 to justify barring certain attorneys from […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Examples #2,145 and 2,146 of the scope of the problem.

Having just scratched long unscratched itches of topics over which dust has gathered last week, let’s resume talking about more recent topics. Specifically, a topic that is going to need to continue to be bellowed about until we can get it fixed: the flaws in RPC 5.5. Thankfully, we have two further recent situations — […]

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Legal ethics

A virtual example of better, but not good enough.

I know it really hasn’t been that long (a little over two months ago) since I wrote on here to trumpet the APRL proposal for a new ABA Model Rule 5.5. If you missed that, it would help a lot to go read that post first. Here’s a link. I’ll wait right here until you […]

Categories
Legal ethics

500: A Multimedia Extravaganza.

So, in my most recent post, I ended by acknowledging that there was a milestone upcoming and that it seems like a circumstances creating odd pressure. I have now managed to do this for more than seven years and by my best guess there is roughly 500,000 words of content on legal ethics now available […]

Categories
Legal ethics

APRL is leading the way toward modernizing the practice of law.

Yesterday was potentially a very big day in the world of lawyers and clients. I am very pleased to report that yesterday the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers released a proposed overhaul of Model Rule 5.5., called on the ABA to take action to adopt it, and disseminated a very thorough and detailed Report explaining […]

Categories
Legal ethics

2020 too?

This past year has certainly been … something. Other than the ongoing pandemic, this year feels like it will historically be defined (at least within the United States) by the various assaults on democracy starting with the January 6 insurrection, continuing with the efforts of one political party to choose its voters rather than vice […]

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. Legal ethics

Two ethics opinions: one good, one bad, but both reveal systemic problems.

So, New York and Florida. Interestingly, those states have been bookends of our nation’s problems with COVID-19 and with fighting it. New York got hit very badly early, given the concentrated nature of its population centers, but then engaged in a very serious effort of taking the virus very seriously and managed to significantly flatten […]