Categories
. Legal ethics

I always knew I’d be headlining music festivals one day.

That’s not true at all. I never even imagined I’d be the headliner at a music festival. After this year’s AmericanaFest in Nashville though, everything has changed. Well, that’s actually still pretty misleading as I was not the headliner at AmericanaFest. I did, however, get to be a speaker during AmericanaFest, as part of a […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

One possible answer: Radical transparency in design for legal services?

So, this post isn’t exactly about legal ethics. Of course, it isn’t exactly not about legal ethics. I’ve written a bit here recently about various jurisdictions launching increasingly bolder initiatives to try to reform the regulatory landscape when it comes to the delivery of legal services. Many critical voices of these initiatives demand evidence that […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Can Utahp Arizona?

I know. I’m either: (a) such a sucker for Utah-centric wordplay; (b) a lame, repetitive sort of humorist; or (c) both a and b. But nevertheless today’s post is really important – at least the subject matter of it is – and so it is being designed to try to be short and sweet and […]

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. Legal ethics

TN Supreme Court Vacates Formal Ethics Opinion.

I wrote a little bit about Formal Ethics Opinion 2017-F-163 a couple of years ago when it was first issued. I haven’t said anything here about it since then because I ended up being retained by the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference to challenge the opinion. Having obtained permission from my client to do so, […]

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. Legal ethics

Don’t sleep on Arizona

We’ve (in that creepy royal “we” sort of way) now dedicated two posts to discussing the ATILS proposal coming out of California, but California is certainly not the only state working on reform. In fact, while it may be the biggest, it is not the state offering the boldest reforms, and it also isn’t the […]

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. Legal ethics

California dreaming.

As promised, I’m not done writing about the ATILS initial recommendations that have been put out for public comment in California. In fact, I’m here in San Francisco for the next few days at the APRL meeting where there will also be a public forum about the recommendations on August 10. The public comment period […]

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. Legal ethics

Shimkonicity (shim-ko-nis-a-tee)

When I first read some reporting about this decision from Ohio involving the indefinite suspension of a lawyer, I expected it to come across very much as an obvious case of a lawyer’s third strike leading to a steep punishment. But, the coming together of so many things with respect to this lawyer’s situation actually […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Really big goings on in California.

And, no, in the title I’m not referring to the leak of information about the California Bar essay topics before the bar exam. Although that story is certainly bananas. You’ve likely by now read at least something somewhere online about the most recent product coming out of the California State Bar Task Force on Access […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

A modest proposal (about NYC Bar Op. 2019-5)

I have made a living (well not actually a living since no one compensates me in any form of currency, whether crypto or otherwise, for my writings here) writing about problematic ethics opinions. July 11, 2019 brings what might be the most practically useless ethics opinion ever released. If it were only just practically useless, […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Tales of typos and punctuation problems.

I’ve written once or twice in the past about how questions of punctuation and typographical error can be unimportant when the issue amounts only to pedantry. Of course, punctuation can be very important. The stage phenomenon Hamilton has a good line or two about this involving “My dearest Angelica. With a comma after dearest, you’ve […]