Last month, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Committee on Professional Ethics put out a thorough Formal Opinion addressing when it is unethical for an attorney to threaten to file a disciplinary complaint against another lawyer. While Formal Opinion 2015-5 is a well-written opinion overall, it is a sprawling one […]
Category: Legal ethics
Several years ago, we attempted in Tennessee to have our Court adopt an ethics rule that would specifically address what constituted client file materials. The effort was unsuccessful despite the fact that the rule we proposed was a strong, well-written rule. The primary reason we were unsuccessful was (as you’ll decipher from pages 24-25 of the […]
I’ve written a good bit over the last few months about a variety of issues related to problems involving unauthorized practice of law issues for lawyers licensed in at least one jurisdiction. Tennessee still has the pending petition filed by the Board of Law Examiners that should result in some form of practice pending admission rule that will […]
A couple of timely updates, both involving California events. I’ve quite recently written about the ethical issues associated with the trend toward de-criminalization if not outright legalization of marijuana here. As yet further proof about the rapid developments in this area, the San Francisco Bar Association put out an ethics opinion earlier this month making clear […]
I commend to your reading a very well done, thorough, and I think (hope) persuasive report from the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers regarding the subject of lawyer advertising. Although none of us were on the Lawyer Advertising Committee that put this together, several of us on the committee are members of APRL. You can […]
Practicing in the part of the world that I do, I gape with both amazement and jealousy at the hourly rates lawyers are able to charge in much larger metropolitan areas. I try not to think about the difference in a way that is demeaning; instead, I try (perhaps just for more own sanity) to […]
There is no question that there continue to be rapid developments arising in the law resulting from the steady trend among states toward reevaluating the legality of marijuana use under their state’s law. Several states have made it outright legal for recreational use under their state law, while others have legalized only medicinal uses, and […]
During my 2013 Ethics Roadshow, I had a rare opportunity to highlight three instances of former government prosecutors receiving public discipline over past misconduct. Such events are so rare that for three high-profile ones to happen in the same year seemed quite remarkable. One of those three involved a Texas prosecutor who was disbarred for […]
This month the New York City Bar Association has issued an interesting formal ethics opinion on what is, in some respects, a surprisingly little discussed ethical situation: What it can mean for a lawyer’s ethical obligations to simply be serving in a matter as “local counsel.” When I first saw some of the media coverage […]
One interesting difference among jurisdictions in the U.S. as to the regulation of lawyers involves whether a particular state has an unified bar association structure or not. A state like North Carolina operates under such a structure. Every lawyer that obtains a license to practice in North Carolina is a member of the state bar […]