Categories
. Legal ethics

Bad ethics opinion or the worst ethics opinion? – Ohio 2015-2 edition

Let’s play a little game called:  Bad ethics opinion or the worst ethics opinion? Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Ohio Board of Professional Conduct issued Opinion 2015-2 about whether/how a lawyer presenting at a legal seminar can distribute brochures to prospective clients and whether the lawyer can answer legal questions posed by the […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

South Carolina adopts first of its kind* rule on cognitive impairment.

My paternal grandfather succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease.  As someone who makes a living (such as it is) using his mind (and is pretty certain that he could not feed his family if forced to use his hands for a living), the loss of my mental faculties is one of my greatest fears.  In that regard, […]

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. Legal ethics

A reminder (for you) about the importance of coverage issues and (for me) that there is a second side to most stories.

This is an update on the California lawyer who successfully compelled arbitration of a client’s salacious claims that he treated her as essentially a “sex slave” that I wrote about here. While I talked about that case as an example of the growing power of arbitration provisions in the arena of attorney-client contracts, I did […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

2015 Ethics Roadshow = The Answers to Life, the Universe & the Ethics Rules

I am excited to formally announce that I will be doing the Ethics Roadshow for the Tennessee Bar Association again in 2015.  I am also really excited about this year’s theme and the prospect of putting together an entire 3-hour presentation that offers up answers to actual questions on the minds of those in the […]

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. Legal ethics

Kickstarter worked for the potato salad guy, but it is more like a nonstarter for fledgling lawyers.

It was about two years ago when a man from Ohio put up a Kickstarter to raise $10 to make potato salad and ended up receiving tens of thousands of dollars in donations.  I’m sure there were many people who were familiar with this concept before then, but for me that was the first I’d […]

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. Legal ethics

“Damn near never…”

I mentioned back near the end of July 2015 that I would be participating on a panel at the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers’ Annual Meeting in Chicago.  It is always an honor to get to speak at an APRL meeting, and it was particularly an honor to share the stage with Eliza Rodrigues of […]

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. Legal ethics

I give you sprinkles today in hopes you will help me make it rain tomorrow?

About three months ago, I wrote about a New York ethics opinion that blessed a marketing effort that I stressed would likely be unethical in Tennessee.  That situation involved a lawyer giving client’s a rebate if they agreed to post a review of the lawyer’s work at an online site. In a fairly decent sign […]

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. Legal ethics

A rose may be a rose but UPL does not always mean the same thing as UPL.

So, you likely have read about or stumbled into something on the web about the remarks offered by the founder of Avvo at the ABA Meeting.  If you somehow missed having that hit your radar screen at all, you can read about it (and snippets of the remarks of the other folks who gave similar […]

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. Legal ethics

“Were you aware of it?” – Friday edition (A tale of two AGs)

Were you aware that 4% of the state attorneys general (attorney generals?) in the United States have been indicted already in August 2015?  Well, they were.  First, Texas’ Attorney General was indicted as we learned when his indictment was unsealed on August 3, 2015.  Then, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General was indicted on August 6, 2015. For […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

The TBA’s Filed Comment to the Board of Law Examiners Proposed Rule Changes

Over the last few months, I have posted on several occasions about the petition pending before the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking some significant changes to the rules in Tennessee regarding admission of attorneys to practice in a variety of contexts.  If you are new to the blog, you can get up to speed on this […]