Categories
. Legal ethics

Friday follow up: In-house counsel amnesty deadline just a week away

In the very early days of this aspiring little blog, I wrote repeatedly about a number of proposed, and ultimately adopted, changes to Tennessee’s admissions and licensing rule, Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 7.  Included among the implemented changes was one last chance at amnesty for lawyers working in Tennessee as in-house counsel but who were […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

Hyperbole is the worst thing in the world – judicial ethics roundup

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important opinion on judicial recusal, Williams v. Pennsylvania.  It is the first instance in which the Court has applied the standard first announced in Caperton — that recusal is required when the risk of actual bias on the part of a judge is “too high to be […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Revisiting the question of whether the ethics rules need revamping as to discrimination & harassment

So, quite a few months ago, I wrote about what (I think) was the first iteration of the proposed revision to RPC 8.4 to add a black-letter rule addressing discrimination and harassment.  My verdict at the time was one of skepticism that it made any sense at all to move workplace and employment discrimination issues […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Bad blogger – please accept this potpourri like sprinkling of items

The week feels like it is getting away from me, some travel, some work, some personal life, but may be able to write about something more substantive I’ve been meaning to tackle for later this week.  For today, here is a scattershot of stories all of which involve something previously found to be worthwhile enough […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

“En” to the . . . ah . . . to the no, no, no!

So, blame my children for the Meghan Trainor reference, but it is a catchy tune and, actually, not the worst of messages of female empowerment.  Nevertheless, it fits my ramblings today too well for me to resist. A blurb about a trademark infringement suit involving an Atlanta law firm that operates under a trade name […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

APRL’s supplemental advertising overhaul proposal

Back in June 2015, I dedicated a post here to praising APRL’s proposal to streamline ethics rules imposing outdated restrictions on lawyer advertising.  A proposal that recognizes that lots of states currently have advertising restrictions on the books that could not survive a constitutional challenge and that aren’t really even being sought to be enforced and […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

If it ever will come to pass, the states will have to serve as the laboratories.

Two weeks ago, I offered some thoughts on the latest flare-up in the long-running off-and-on ABA exploration of the third-rail of the practice of law: potential non-lawyer ownership/investment in law firms.  This time around, before I could even manage to finish reading all of the comments and try to write some thoughts about the comments, […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and Seeing If I Can Put a Dent In Figuring Out What Is Next for Law.

When you allow yourself to ponder just how quickly technological advances have changed the daily life of a lawyer, it becomes pretty easy to speculate about just how foreign the daily life of a lawyer 10 years from now will be when compared to what it is today.  When I stop to think about the […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Redefining what it means to be a “nonlawyer.”

I’ve written (quite a long time ago now it seems, but it was only just last Spring) about the unfortunate nature of lawyers calling people who aren’t lawyers “nonlawyers” – rather than referring to them in a less condescending fashion such as “regular people,” for example.  But, I still do it all the time, so […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Recipe for a blogpost in a pinch – two parts shameless self promotion; one part substance

I’m fortunate enough this week to be in Austin, Texas in order to share a stage with the wonderfully-talented Lynda Shely on Friday to talk for an hour on ethics at the DRI Employment and Labor Law seminar.  Working off of a hypothetical that has a “cribbed” from the headlines if not a “ripped” from […]