Categories
. Legal ethics

A rose may be a rose but UPL does not always mean the same thing as UPL.

So, you likely have read about or stumbled into something on the web about the remarks offered by the founder of Avvo at the ABA Meeting.  If you somehow missed having that hit your radar screen at all, you can read about it (and snippets of the remarks of the other folks who gave similar […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

APRL Advertising Revision Proposal and the NOBC Meeting

I had the opportunity last Friday to attend the joint APRL/NOBC program put on during the National Organization of Bar Counsel meeting in Chicago (which also happens at the same time as APRL’s annual meeting, which happens to run at the same time as the ABA Annual Meeting).  The joint program focused on APRL’s white […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Plaintiffs’ personal injury firm is to investment banker as . . . ?

A major issue that has dogged the legal profession in the past, and looks likely to dog it again in the near future (if you don’t happen to think it already does), is the debate over the restriction imposed under the ethics rules that prevents non-lawyers from having any ownership stake in a law firm. […]

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. Legal ethics

A verein-teresting thought experiment? Part 2

So, if you missed Part 1 you can get up to speed here.  Now I indicated I’d get the underlying documents (plural) this weekend and finish this little thought experiment today, but I don’t actually practice in the International Trade Commission (shocking to hear I bet) so beyond getting to the order of disqualification itself, […]

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. Legal ethics

A verein-teresting thought experiment? Part 1.

In preparation for a panel presentation coming up at the end of this month, I have been delving back into the complicated and contradictory world of disqualification rulings from around the country.  While the lay of the land is highly inconsistent to a large degree, there are some common themes that can be teased out […]

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. Legal ethics

Hopefully this will be the first step in streamlining the regulation of lawyer advertising

I commend to your reading a very well done, thorough, and I think (hope) persuasive report from the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers regarding the subject of lawyer advertising.  Although none of us were on the Lawyer Advertising Committee that put this together, several of us on the committee are members of APRL.   You can […]

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. Legal ethics

Not all bar associations are created equal

One interesting difference among jurisdictions in the U.S. as to the regulation of lawyers involves whether a particular state has an unified bar association structure or not.  A state like North Carolina operates under such a structure.  Every lawyer that obtains a license to practice in North Carolina is a member of the state bar […]

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. Legal ethics

Washington state likely to start out with 7 LLLTs

Another post keeping up with the ongoing effort in the State of Washington to try to close the access-to-justice gap through an outside-the-mainstream effort of authorizing certain types of legal services to be provided to the public by those not licensed to practice law.  I’ve previously written about this here and here. Now the news, reported first […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Baby steps, but still a positive development

From time to time, I have been asked questions about whether lawyers needed to be doing anything (or even could do anything) to try to better guarantee protections of client communications and maintain privilege and confidentiality in the world after the news started to come out about just how broad the NSA’s surveillance operations appeared […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Washington decides to also let LLLTs share fees and have ownership interest in law firms

This news out of Washington state is an unfortunate development if you had hopes that the concept of Limited License Legal Technicians (LLTs) might be a more broadly adopted cure for the “justice gap” that ails the profession in many parts of the country.  Washington state’s decision to permit lawyers to share attorney fees with […]