Categories
. Legal ethics

Revisiting the question of whether the ethics rules need revamping as to discrimination & harassment

So, quite a few months ago, I wrote about what (I think) was the first iteration of the proposed revision to RPC 8.4 to add a black-letter rule addressing discrimination and harassment.  My verdict at the time was one of skepticism that it made any sense at all to move workplace and employment discrimination issues […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Bad blogger – please accept this potpourri like sprinkling of items

The week feels like it is getting away from me, some travel, some work, some personal life, but may be able to write about something more substantive I’ve been meaning to tackle for later this week.  For today, here is a scattershot of stories all of which involve something previously found to be worthwhile enough […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

“Cases Without Counsel” study confirms the obvious but also raises more subtle dilemmas

If all you manage to do was read the headline from the ABA Journal online story today — “Self-represented litigants perceive bias and disadvantage in court process, report finds,” your reaction will likely be limited to “Duh.”  But, there is much more that can be gleaned from this “Cases Without Counsel” study and report that the Institute for […]

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. Legal ethics

Radiolab does the “buried bodies” case

Over the last couple of years, like a lot of other people, I have gotten very into listening to podcasts on my way to and from work and on car trips.  Most of what I spend my time listening to is in the comedic vein (MBMBAM, Judge John Hodgman, You Talking U2 to Me), but […]

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. Legal ethics

“En” to the . . . ah . . . to the no, no, no!

So, blame my children for the Meghan Trainor reference, but it is a catchy tune and, actually, not the worst of messages of female empowerment.  Nevertheless, it fits my ramblings today too well for me to resist. A blurb about a trademark infringement suit involving an Atlanta law firm that operates under a trade name […]

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. Legal ethics

Dishonesty in settlement negotiations

This is a topic I’ve spoken about on a number of times over the years as it can make for a pretty decent CLE presentation.  Any such presentation almost always involves use of a hypothetical to explore issues that seem (or at least can sound) academic to a large extent.  The usual jumping off point […]

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. Legal ethics

APRL’s supplemental advertising overhaul proposal

Back in June 2015, I dedicated a post here to praising APRL’s proposal to streamline ethics rules imposing outdated restrictions on lawyer advertising.  A proposal that recognizes that lots of states currently have advertising restrictions on the books that could not survive a constitutional challenge and that aren’t really even being sought to be enforced and […]

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. Legal ethics

If it ever will come to pass, the states will have to serve as the laboratories.

Two weeks ago, I offered some thoughts on the latest flare-up in the long-running off-and-on ABA exploration of the third-rail of the practice of law: potential non-lawyer ownership/investment in law firms.  This time around, before I could even manage to finish reading all of the comments and try to write some thoughts about the comments, […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Judicial elections are expensive in more ways than one.

There are lots of sources and stories about the escalation of dollars poured into, and spent in, judicial elections in various states.  Here’s an April 2016 article about Wisconsin; and here’s an October 2015 press release from a special-interest group made of folks including The Brennan Center.  But that isn’t the only thing that makes […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and Seeing If I Can Put a Dent In Figuring Out What Is Next for Law.

When you allow yourself to ponder just how quickly technological advances have changed the daily life of a lawyer, it becomes pretty easy to speculate about just how foreign the daily life of a lawyer 10 years from now will be when compared to what it is today.  When I stop to think about the […]