Earlier this week I criticized what I consider to be a pretty bad ethics opinion that was issued by Rhode Island. To balance things out a bit, I want to write about an ethics opinion out of Wisconsin that gives the correct answer to its query – Wisconsin Formal Ethics Opinion EF-17-02. That opinion correctly […]
Category: Legal ethics
I have perused a lot of ethics opinions over the years. Whether a kind of scenario presents a conflict is a frequent subject of ethics opinions. I don’t think I’ve read many that address whether a particular conflict of interest is fairly treated as a consentable conflict, however. Having now read Rhode Island Ethics Advisory […]
In October of this year, I’ll have the honor of again getting to serve as a moderator for a panel discussion at Aon’s Law Firm Symposium. This year’s event will take place in D.C. The topic of the panel I get to be a part of will be something of a DQ motion boot camp. […]
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A tale as old as time.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one … it’s about a lawyer getting into trouble for overbilling … where there are examples of the lawyer even trying to claim to have billed more than 24 hours in a day. You probably stopped me somewhere in there because you have heard it before. The legal profession […]
[In the interest of full disclosure for those who might be new here, I am presently a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL).] For those who aren’t new here, you know full well my personal opinion on lawyer advertising and what the ethics rules should and should […]
An opinion worthy of discussion was issued in Ohio back in February 2017 but I didn’t stumble across it until this past week. (A tweet by ALAS got it onto my radar screen.) Advisory Opinion 2017-1 from the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct addresses advertisement of contingent fee arrangements and, in particular, it addresses the […]
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of serving as a moderator at a CLE event in Nashville focused on developments in the world of consumer-facing legal services providers. There are a world of companies – predominantly existing only online — that have an increasing presence in the lives of people in need of legal services and […]
I like to think I am “warier” than the average attorney. But a recent attorney-client privilege opinion out of New York was a good reminder that being “wary” can be much like being “woke.” Even if you think you are, you probably aren’t as much as you think you are, and you can always be […]
Rules of Holes. Rule the First. When you are in one, stop digging. Now two things worth saying by way of preface, I guess, before further explanation. First, I’ve dealt with my share of problematic lawyers over the years (so too probably have you), including the type that doesn’t know when to say when, so […]
So North Carolina has got quite a bit going on these days. Last night UNC won the NCAA Men’s Basketball championship. A few days ago, its general assembly kind of, sort of, repealed the bathroom bill that brought it much negative publicity and cost it some sporting events. And, in March 2017, it adopted a […]