Categories
. Legal ethics

Utahlking Ethics Opinions to Me? (Also Texas)

I’m interested in writing today about two recent ethics opinions that manage to go together quite nicely.  Utah Ethics Adv. Op. 18-04 and Texas Professional Ethics Committee Op. 679.  Both involve RPC 1.8 (or at least both should).  And, not only does neither opinion do a very good job with the subject matter it tackles […]

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. Legal ethics

Yet another reason for change. Pretty much the most serious reason.

So there are things that can really make you feel small.  And there are things that can really lead to despair and a feeling of helplessness.  Fortunately, there are few things that do both at once.  The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can do both of those things pretty simply.  If you […]

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. Legal ethics

Withdrawing a guilty plea is notary-ly easy thing to do.

The pun was, of course, inevitable.  It was also fully intended.  In fact, it is, at least for me, repetitive as back in 2013 I was asked to do a seminar on the ethics of being a notary public — they have their own ethics code — and I called it “Notary-ly Common Topic: The […]

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. Legal ethics

Neither a stalker nor a burglar be.

Matters of the heart have caused people lots of problems throughout the course of human history.  Matters of the heart, when the heart is located inside the chest of a lawyer, work pretty much the same way. Of course, sometimes stories that, on the surface, seem like matters of the heart might be more fairly […]

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. Legal ethics

Nebraska demonstrating less patience than Tennessee

Although I live in SEC country, I am a Chelsea FC fan rather than a follower of college football.  So this is not a sly college football reference in my title.  (I am aware that apparently UT lost its first game of the season but have literally no idea whether the Cornhuskers have even played […]

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. Legal ethics

Can’t stop, won’t stop. Now … full stop.

I’m really, truly not trying to fall into the habit of only managing one post a week.  As proof, here’s a post about a Tennessee lawyer who couldn’t/wouldn’t follow the rules. It is a fascinating case study for at least two reasons.  One is that discipline for conflicts of interest is, all things considered, relatively […]

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. Legal ethics

Making it up as you go (but for a good cause): Texas State Bar Op. 673

There has been something of a trend of late in terms of ethics opinions focusing on variations on the breadth of the duty of client confidentiality and the inconvenience it creates for lawyers who have bought in to the modern trend of sharing and oversharing when online.  There was this opinion from the ABA and […]

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. Legal ethics

Information overload; summer struggles.

Mid-August often feels like summer doldrums.  Yet, there has been so much recent information of interest in the world of legal ethics that it is hard to keep up.  Thus, one can manage to feel simultaneously adrift and overloaded. In that spirit (and because I am that “one”), here are a handful (plus 2) of […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

The ethics of putting together an unenforceable contract.

It is still astounding (as well as deeply dispiriting) that the context of the discussion I’m about to launch is the work of White House Counsel but this is the world we currently occupy.  You may very well have read this fascinating The Washington Post article by now released in connection with the ongoing news story […]

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. Legal ethics

ABA adopts new, more modern advertising rules! So, of course, Eeyores assemble.

Earlier this week, the ABA House of Delegates, on a voice vote, passed some much needed improvements to the Seven Series of the Model Rules in order to modernize certain aspects of the regulation of lawyer advertising.  I’ve written in the past about how the proposal before the ABA came about as a result of […]