In 2017, a lawyer moving from one law firm to another is a pretty common place occurrence. Anyone who has been through the process knows how personally difficult and stressful the ordeal can be no matter how excited you are about your next destination. The emotional and personal components alone can be trying, but the […]
Tag: Ethics Opinions
Again, not fair actually. This NY ethics opinion isn’t in the running for being the worst ethics opinion and isn’t even truly bad and actually, I guess, not even wrong. But it does point out a really bad flaw with respect to the language of the particular NY rule it applies. What seems like an […]
The need for clarity with respect to what makes up the “client file” has been an issue I have tried to stay up to date on dating back to our unsuccessful efforts back in 2009 to convince the Tennessee Supreme Court to adopt a rule – what would have been RPC 1.19 — to address […]
Not too long ago, I weighed in on an Alaska Ethics Opinion about the ethics of lawyers using email “bugs” that surreptitiously track what happens to an email after it has been sent. There is a new, interesting read on the “legal or not” aspect of this technology in the ABA/BNA Lawyers Manual on Professional […]
So, this week the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued Formal Op. 476 addressing the need to protect client confidentiality when a lawyer seeks to withdraw for reasons involving the client’s failure to pay. As explained below, it is a solid, practical opinion touching on a subject often overlooked by lawyers who […]
So, the D.C. Bar has come out with a far-reaching, sort of two-part ethics opinion addressing lawyers and social media usage. Opinion 370 (Part 1) can be grabbed here. Opinion 371 (Part 2) from here. Opinion 370 has lots of really good parts, but much of the publicity it has received to date revolves around […]
Sorry, bad and lazy pun for a title. As loyal readers of the site know, I like to write from time-to-time about formal ethics opinions issued by state regulatory bodies. A recent one caught my attention at first for its — “I cannot believe someone even had to ask feel.” But, ultimately after I read […]
I’ve mentioned in the past the fact that Tennessee has a version of RPC 4.4(b) that directly addresses, and provides what I happen to think is the correct outcome, for what a lawyer is supposed to do about the receipt of someone else’s confidential information either inadvertently or via someone who isn’t authorized to have […]
First, no argument from me that I’ve been a bad blogger this week. I’d offer excuses, but no one likes to hear excuses. Second, how about some actual substantive content … I’ve written in the past about ethical issues surrounding the verein structure of some of the largest law firms in the world. Those prior […]
I haven’t rolled a post out with this title in a while, but the more truthful title when it comes to an ethics opinion, issued here in Tennessee on September 9, 2016 would be: “More bad than worthless or more worthless than bad?” First, the good news. Tenn. Formal Ethics Op. 2016-F-161 is short. It won’t […]