Quite a few years ago now, I did a seminar titled something like “The Golden Rule of Litigation” or “Litigation and the Golden Rule.” One of the fun aspects of putting it together was finding confirmation that some version of The Golden Rule – the “do unto others as you would have them do unto […]
Yesterday, I offered a positive review of a recent ethics opinion from the New York City Bar. Today, I want to talk through this Order on the Merits striking down Florida’s restriction in its ethics rules on the ability of lawyers to refer to themselves as a specialist in the absence of a board certification from […]
For a change of pace, I write today about a very well constructed ethics opinion out of New York. (To keep this positivity train chugging along for at least one more day, my plan for tomorrow is to discuss a federal court decision out of Florida impacting attorney ethics that is also praiseworthy and that […]
Inspiration, like corn, comes from Iowa today. It’s time again for a little game called, is this a bad ethics opinion or the worst ethics opinion? The Iowa State Bar Association Committee on Ethics and Practice Guidelines self-nominated by issuing Op. 15-03. Before I make enemies of a few Iowa lawyers that I have no doubt […]
I am not telling anyone who has any experience with this medium anything they do not already know when I say that blogging is a very time-consuming activity. Blogging demands content, but some days you just aren’t feeling it. This is particularly problematic when you are only attempting to do 2 to 3 posts a […]
When people talk about the future of legal ethics in the United States, it is always helpful to engage them in a dialogue about what purpose they think the regulation of lawyers is meant to serve. If you and the other person do not agree on what the purposes to be served are supposed to […]
So sorry for the title if you are not a fan of a syntactically-challenged play on words. But this news item out of Kentucky sounds like the kind of plot that would make for good fodder for a future season of the TV show Fargo. (Which, yes if you are unfamiliar with it, is spun […]
In many jurisdictions, disciplinary proceedings against lawyers are referred to as being “quasi-criminal” in nature. If you ask lawyers who defend lawyers in disciplinary proceedings, you will often hear them agree that the nature of the work can feel a good bit like criminal defense work, but with two pretty universal exceptions that make the […]
In Tennessee, we have a version of RPC 1.6(b)(4) patterned after the ABA Model Rule that permits a lawyer to disclose confidential client information for the purpose of getting advice about how to comply with his/her ethical obligations. The last sentence of Comment [9] to that rule stresses that this disclosure can only be made, however, if […]
“Does this require a response?” Print those words out and tape them to the top of your monitor or laptop screen. They are words to live by. Practicing law is stressful and always has been. Lawyers have always known that they can make mistakes that destroy their client’s life or financial situation and potentially their […]