Categories
. Legal ethics

An open letter to State Bar of Texas

Dear Sir or Ma’am: It’s been a tough year, but I hope this email finds you staying safe. I’m writing to urge you to give some real thought to whether your rule on the ability to impose an “interim” suspension on a Texas lawyer goes as far as it needs to in order to be […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

The perils of letting your clients speak for themselves.

I’ve been known in the past when writing or speaking about Model Rule 4.2 and the restrictions it imposes to make the point that our ethics rule treats grown up adults as incapable of making decisions for themselves. Mostly jokingly I make that point. When elaborating it is merely to focus on the idea that […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Stress, drinks, and folderol

Over the last several months there have been various iterations of stories and reports making the rounds about the susceptibility of our profession to depression and substance abuse, reports of 1 in 5 lawyers being problem drinkers, etc.  There are also always folks out there writing variations of pieces about the problems that are created […]