So far this month, the Professional Ethics Committee for the State Bar of Texas has put out two ethics opinions worthy of some discussion given the issues tackled and the outcomes of each opinion. The more recent of the two, Opinion No. 653, evaluates whether a lawyer acting pro se in a matter has to […]
Tag: Confidentiality
A while back I wrote a piece about a relatively deep conversation I had about right and wrong and why lawyers do some really bad things with a SuperShuttle driver in Phoenix. If you missed it, you can read it here. But one of the things I didn’t say during that conversation was that there […]
I’ve previously written about a pending rule revision in Tennessee that the BPR initiated and to which the TBA responded here. Last week the Tennessee Supreme Court entered this order and adopted essentially the language that the BPR was seeking and did not incorporate the suggestions the TBA made that would have actually provided the […]
Actually, unlike some other posts in this category, this title’s not even close to reflecting a serious question being asked. Slapping that tile on this post is more of a crutch. The ethics opinion I want to discuss here is miles away from even being in the conversation among the worst ethics opinions. It really isn’t […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
Categories
Two updates and a (hidden) microphone.
A few items for your consideration over this coming long, Labor Day weekend. The first is an update on a proposed ethics opinion made the subject of an earlier post. The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors has now ultimately decided to reject the approach that had been recommended by its advertising subcommittee, which proposed that […]
Today, we spend a few more minutes addressing a topic that will likely be a rich vein of discussion for years to come or for at least for as long as lawyers continue to be human beings whichever is shorter. (Even with this news, you figure we have a few years left before we have […]