It’s an old adage that bad facts make bad law. In the last few weeks, a good number of pieces were written focusing heightened attention on an issue that many lawyers were already stewing about . . . technological vulnerabilities arising from how lawyers and law firms use (and don’t use) technology. Most of these […]
Tag: Confidentiality
So, yesterday, I started writing about the potential ramifications for lawyers of the adoption by the Department of Labor of its final “persuader” rule which will become effective on April 25, 2016, but will only be applicable to agreements entered into on and after July 1, 2016. You can catch up on part 1 here. […]
The scope of confidentiality lawyers owe to their clients has long been a subject that I find fascinating. Over the last few years, I’ve mulled how its broad scope will continue to play out with current and future generations of both lawyers and clients who routinely, almost even instinctively, share seemingly every detail of their […]
A few months ago, I wrote a post about a frustrating Tennessee Ethics Opinion that offered guidance on lawyers’ obligations when responding to a subpoena for client information by, in part, treating a subpoena as if it were a court order. Last week, the ABA issued Formal Opinion 473, Obligations Upon Receiving a Subpoena or Other Compulsory […]
Thanks to ESPN I’ve long known more about Johnny Manziel than I care to. But, this past week, I learned something I really should never know — why his agent decided to fire Manziel as his client. Up until this past week, Erik Burkhardt was Manziel’s agent. Burkhardt is a law school graduate, but from […]
Categories
Airing the profession’s dirty laundry
Ok, let’s talk about the 60 Minutes piece that aired this past Sunday. If you haven’t watched it, by all means you should — it is worth the 20-30 minutes of your time. You can watch it here. As always, I’ll wait until you get done and come back. Now, it seems beyond dispute that the […]
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 […]
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 […]