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. Legal ethics

Traps for the Unwary – Avvo Legal Services Comes to Tennessee

I’ve written previously about the maelstrom of issues presented by Avvo’s expansion from its original core business as a lawyer rating service into new things such as Avvo Legal Services — an arrangement where it makes clients, who will have already paid Avvo for the legal services they want, available directly to lawyers to perform […]

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. Legal ethics

ABA Formal Opinion 16-474: half (or more) of a pretty good opinion

Last week, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued its latest formal opinion – Opinion No. 16-474 addressing the topic of “referral” fees under the ABA Model Rules and, specifically, the intersection of Model Rule 1.5(e) and conflicts requirements under Model Rule 1.7.   Along the way, the opinion also stakes out […]

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. Legal ethics

The Wisdom of Ferris Bueller. The reality of Machiavelli.

Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller Back in December 2015, during my Ethics Roadshow I talked a little bit about one of the items that had been rolled out for public comment by the ABA Commission on the Future […]

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. Legal ethics

Pursuing a popular cause? Crowdsourcing payment of your fees may be an option for your client.

Some time ago, I wrote a bit about how existing ethics rules make attempting to use Kickstarter to launch a law firm not a viable option.  The primary problem with using crowdsourcing to raise funds to start a law practice is the prohibition in the ethics rules on nonlawyer ownership or investment in law firms. […]

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. Legal ethics

Avvo Legal Services won’t work in Tennessee without RPC 7.6 compliance, but should it be so?

The evolution of Avvo from its origins as a lawyer-rating service to something with a much, much more extensive impact in the legal marketplace continued this week with the news of the launch of Avvo Legal Services.  Robert Ambrogi was, as often is the case, the first to break the news online about the development, […]

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. Legal ethics

More on contingent fees and the overall requirement of “reasonableness”

In my last post of 2015, in the context of a discussion of a slightly different fee topic (nonrefundable fees), I made reference to the overarching “reasonableness” requirement under the ethics rules for attorney fees of any flavor, including contingency fees.  The example I grabbed for at the time was how a 60% contingency fee […]

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. Legal ethics

“Licensed to bill?” or “When a fee award won’t hold its worth”

Practicing in the part of the world that I do, I gape with both amazement and jealousy at the hourly rates lawyers are able to charge in much larger metropolitan areas.  I try not to think about the difference in a way that is demeaning; instead, I try (perhaps just for more own sanity) to […]

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. Legal ethics

Traps for the unwary – Mid-stream changes to your client’s fee agreement

When lawyers think about problematic business transactions with a client, they usually think about things like loans or, perhaps, situations in which a lawyer is joining a client as an investor in a business venture.  The ethics rule regarding business transactions with clients, RPC 1.8(a), is broader in its coverage than just those situations and, […]

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. Legal ethics

TN’s Approach to Nonrefundable Fees – A Reminder

Near the end of February 2015, the New York City Bar put out its Formal Opinion 2015-2 evaluating a question of propriety of a flat, nonrefundable monthly fee in a retainer agreement and reached the conclusion that a particular one that was something of a “hybrid” was problematic.  Although the NYC opinion makes for a […]