Categories
Legal ethics

You have to unring a bell the right way & you really can only do it once.

Welcome to 2024 y’all. Lawyers spend an inordinate (but not actually unduly excessive) amount of time worried about making mistakes that involve sending the wrong information to the wrong people. For lawyers in most U.S. jurisdictions, the ethics rules do not provide truly comprehensive guidance about how to fix such a mistake because the ethics […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

The Bare Necessities

Let’s just blow past the usual excuses when I go this long without posting and jump right in instead. Ok? Great. Today, the United States Supreme Court has adopted and released a Code of Judicial Ethics to which they say they will adhere. You can read the whole thing here. Having written a few times […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

Really good guidance, but not good enough for some.

While I’m catching up on things I should have managed to write about sooner, ABA Formal Ethics Op. 488 is deserving of a few words. That opinion was issued back in early September of this year. What particularly brought it to mind now was that it covers one of multiple topics I was lucky enough […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

A teachable moment to make your eyes water.

When you spend a lot of time consulting with and advising lawyers, finding teachable moments from examples of things that happen in real life are extremely helpful. The world can be filled with teachable moments. On a non-ethics front, here is one: If you don’t pay attention to when a credit card has a new […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Asking for a conflict waiver is a step that is hard to take back.

Look, I understand too little too late I realize there are things you say and do You can never take back But what would you be if you didn’t even try You have to try So after a lot of thought I’d like to reconsider Please If it’s not too late Make it a cheeseburger – […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Litigating your own work product – a tricky (at best) topic.

So, first things first, I am thoroughly surprised and incredibly honored to have made it into the ABA Journal’s 2018 Web 100.  If you are here for the first time because this happened, thanks for reading and feel free to look around as there is 3+ years of content you can read while you are […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

Friday Follow-Up: Florida Finds Facebook Friendship Fine

You’ve probably heard this news by now.  But, it’s Friday and I wrote about this before, so … I feel a sense of obligation to follow-up. The Florida Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the fact that a judge is Facebook friends with a lawyer appearing before her in a litigated matter is not alone sufficient to […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

Proposed revisions to the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges

So last week I was quoted a bit in a Law360 story related to Judge Kavanaugh’s continued effort to ascend to the highest judicial position in our nation.  If you are a subscriber, you can read the article here.  It had to do with the news of the lawyer who was going to be representing […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

Supreme problems

A lot of attention is focused on goings-on related to the U.S. Supreme Court – and rightly so given the stakes and given the nature of the saga that continues to unfold. But, lost in the shuffle is the fact that 2 state Supreme Courts in our nation are, at present, entirely in a state […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

Lawyers (but really judges) in a #meToo world.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak last week at a half-day seminar that was called a “#meToo CLE” and was focused on legal and ethical issues for lawyers in the environment that now exists after #meToo went viral. I was the only male speaker at the seminar and fully recognize that still […]