Categories
Legal ethics

Certificate of Consternation

This post will be short (fingers crossed) and sweet bitter. I’ve written pretty extensively lately about the two lawyers (now 3 lawyers) getting a lot of negative publicity for misusing ChatGPT and, as a result, filing documents with courts containing imaginary legal authorities. I will not repeat my points about the failings of those lawyers. […]

Categories
Legal ethics

A Penny for My Thoughts

Someone last week reached out on Twitter and wanted my thoughts on the crowdfunding effort launched by a New York law firm to raise money for the legal defense of Daniel Penny. Thought #1 — not unique to me as I’ve seen others say the same thing — very few things indicate how bad things […]

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Judicial Ethics Legal ethics

Sauce for the goose but not for the gander

A quick and also rare weekend post because I’ve been tied up a bit and am about to be tied up again and unable to post for a week or so. I’ve sallied forth at length here about what I see to be pretty disingenuous attacks based on First Amendment arguments against adopting ABA Model […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Two proposed TN Ethics Opinions – Part 2

Like a movie sequel coming out 10 years later, here comes part two of that promised two-part post. (Can you even really call something a two-part post if the second part doesn’t come along until 10 days later?) The second draft Formal Ethics Opinion put out for public comment by the Board of Professional Responsibility […]

Categories
Legal ethics

“No extensions” – Part 2

So, I know I promised part two of this two-part blog epic would come out today, but things have come up and so I’m going to have to ask you for a little patience and an extension of a few days to deliver. I’m just joking, of course. I know that you won’t be granting […]

Categories
Legal ethics

This “No extensions” Policy Won’t Last Long

Let’s talk about this week’s big legal news. No, not that. No, also not that. Okay, in the interest of accuracy, I should say let’s talk about something that was big legal news this week within some circles and has an easy hook into discussing attorney ethics rules. Yes, you’ve now guessed it – the […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Bard, J. (confusing)

So, writing about the advancements in AI is all the rage right now. And that isn’t surprising because the developments have been coming pretty quickly in 2023 starting with (I think starting with) Open AI rolling out a Chat GPT-3 and all the discussion and the oohing and the aahing and then it within weeks […]

Categories
Legal ethics

What’s a public censure when you’re shameless?

So, I’ve been starting and stopping a post about the most recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinion to be released. Partly, because the opinion is a bit pedestrian generally involving weighing in on a situation that is largely always an “it depends” on factors that are hard to spell out in an ethics opinion and partly […]

Categories
Legal ethics

Kudos to the TN BPR – Giving Public Comment Its Due

So, you can consider this my “commitment” to always writing about new Formal Ethics Opinions that get released in Tennessee when they go through the public comment process. I put commitment in quotes because, at this point, it is only the second time it has ever happened. But it’s the first time where public comments […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics Legal ethics

Secret recordings can be good. Electing judges kind of can’t.

So, the reasons secret recordings will always happen in “one-party” recording states is that they get to the truth. Lots of people do not like them though. And judges absolutely loathe the notion of being secretly recorded. They do not like them so much that sometimes no matter what the secret recording reveals they will […]