In the very early days of this aspiring little blog, I wrote repeatedly about a number of proposed, and ultimately adopted, changes to Tennessee’s admissions and licensing rule, Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 7. Included among the implemented changes was one last chance at amnesty for lawyers working in Tennessee as in-house counsel but who were […]
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important opinion on judicial recusal, Williams v. Pennsylvania. It is the first instance in which the Court has applied the standard first announced in Caperton — that recusal is required when the risk of actual bias on the part of a judge is “too high to be […]
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 […]
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 […]
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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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 […]
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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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 […]
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 […]
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, […]