Categories
. Legal ethics

Something to chew on during your holiday weekend.

I am nowhere near the most plugged in when it comes to lawyers on the forefront of tracking the ways in which rapid developments in technology are changing the practice of law.  I’m a bit more aware than likely most lawyers, in part because I’m constantly looking for things worth writing about here, but also […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Two short updates for a Tuesday

Late last month, I focused a post on a West Virginia lawyer who ended up staring down a 2-year suspension over chronic over-billing.  If you missed that post, you can read it here.  If you read it, you will recall that one of the items discussed was that the Executive Director of the West Virginia […]

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. Legal ethics

Wisconsin rightly says no to name dropping without consent.

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 […]

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. Legal ethics

Bad ethics opinion or the worst ethics opinion? Rhode Island 2017-02

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 […]

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. Legal ethics

As a matter of fact, yes, this potato is still hot. Why do you ask?

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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. Legal ethics

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 […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Virginia’s revised lawyer advertising rules – big win for APRL’s effort to streamline the advertising rules

[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 […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Ohio Opinion 2017-1: Too much and too little at the same time

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 […]

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. Legal ethics

A glimpse into the world of consumer-facing legal services providers

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 […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Traps for the Unwary – Employer email systems

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 […]