Categories
. Legal ethics

Coming to praise rather than bury – Colorado Formal Op. 129

It is almost three months old now, but I wanted to right a word or two about a really well-constructed ethics opinion issued in Colorado, not just because it is an opinion that deserves to be read, but also because it raises a not-quite-academic question about the phenomenon of captive law firms. The opinion put […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Go read this other stuff.

In a little over 2 years and out of 244 prior posts, this is only the second time I have done this, so I don’t feel incredibly bad.  Though I admittedly do feel somewhat bad.  But try as I have to find something this week that I had to say that was worth writing about and […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

What’s in a name?

For example, the folks behind the popular Radiolab podcast also launched a spin-off podcast last year about the U.S. Supreme Court called “More Perfect.”  The reason for naming it that, of course, is that it almost assuredly a reference to the famous line in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution But today it seems a […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Monday memories

Now, I admit, you may be of the opinion that a blog that has only existed for just a bit longer than 2 years probably has no business trying to recycle past posts as flashbacks or memories or what-have-yous.  But, I’ll make you a deal:  you start your own blog and you get to do […]

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
Judicial Ethics

An inside-baseball view of judicial ethics and the media

For today, an interesting (at least I think it is interesting) story about a judicial ethics scenario and the ability of media to “shape” a story and how that ability can transform a question of judicial ethics. About three weeks ago, I spoke with a print reporter with The Nashville Scene about questions he had […]

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 […]

Categories
. 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 […]

Categories
. 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 […]

Categories
. 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. […]