Categories
Legal ethics

It’s called “reciprocal” discipline but …

Sometimes, not always of course, but sometimes representing a client in a disciplinary matter can become much more complicated if they hold licenses in multiple states. The problems of potential reciprocal discipline being imposed in those other states can sometimes make it difficult for a lawyer to be willing to agree to even minor discipline […]

Categories
Legal ethics

What’s a public censure when you’re shameless?

So, I’ve been starting and stopping a post about the most recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinion to be released. Partly, because the opinion is a bit pedestrian generally involving weighing in on a situation that is largely always an “it depends” on factors that are hard to spell out in an ethics opinion and partly […]

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
Judicial Ethics Legal ethics

Secret recordings can be good. Electing judges kind of can’t.

So, the reasons secret recordings will always happen in “one-party” recording states is that they get to the truth. Lots of people do not like them though. And judges absolutely loathe the notion of being secretly recorded. They do not like them so much that sometimes no matter what the secret recording reveals they will […]

Categories
Legal ethics Off-Topic

Several scattered thoughts about advancements in AI

So, life really moves fast. Though, while it seems like advancements in AI are also really moving fast, maybe they aren’t moving as fast as the hype. That is the topic for today. Now, when I say life really moves fast … I mean that between my starting this post yesterday and today a giant […]

Categories
Legal ethics

DoNotP(L)ay

Or maybe we should title this post “Do Not Accept Payment” instead. So, a long time ago I wrote about some of the very good work that was being done by the folks associated with the “chat bot” app DoNotPay. If you do not remember any of that, you can refresh through this link. The […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Is North Carolina’s path the future of RPC 1.6?

Okay, so in the interest of full transparency, what I really wanted to write about is the fact that we have a new entrant in the running for “Who is the worst of the Trump lawyers out there?” competition. Among the many things that have come out of the work of the January 6 Committee […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Tennessee Topic Today

There is an old saying about how when your only tool is a hammer, then you treat everything as a nail. I’m not getting the vernacular 100% correct, but you get the gist. That is the introduction for this post today because, as a lawyer who makes a living representing other lawyers (and obviously needs […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Just a sh***y lawyer practicing past his “sell-by” date

We here at this blog try not to write about things just for clicks or that revolve around stuff that simply every regular lawyer would know not to do. But the world demands exceptions sometimes, so here I am today addressing a story that popped up right before Turkey Day and that might help suppress […]

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 […]