I’m interested in writing today about two recent ethics opinions that manage to go together quite nicely. Utah Ethics Adv. Op. 18-04 and Texas Professional Ethics Committee Op. 679. Both involve RPC 1.8 (or at least both should). And, not only does neither opinion do a very good job with the subject matter it tackles […]
Tag: Practice of Law
So there are things that can really make you feel small. And there are things that can really lead to despair and a feeling of helplessness. Fortunately, there are few things that do both at once. The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can do both of those things pretty simply. If you […]
The pun was, of course, inevitable. It was also fully intended. In fact, it is, at least for me, repetitive as back in 2013 I was asked to do a seminar on the ethics of being a notary public — they have their own ethics code — and I called it “Notary-ly Common Topic: The […]
There has been something of a trend of late in terms of ethics opinions focusing on variations on the breadth of the duty of client confidentiality and the inconvenience it creates for lawyers who have bought in to the modern trend of sharing and oversharing when online. There was this opinion from the ABA and […]
It is still astounding (as well as deeply dispiriting) that the context of the discussion I’m about to launch is the work of White House Counsel but this is the world we currently occupy. You may very well have read this fascinating The Washington Post article by now released in connection with the ongoing news story […]
There is an awful lot to like and agree with in this post from Dan Lear, one of the folks who have been the face of Avvo for quite some time. But there is a piece of it that is just simply wrong, and while it would be hyperbole to say it is dangerously wrong, it […]
Lawyers billing clients on the basis of time spent is less than ideal for all involved. For lawyers, it isn’t the best proxy for value delivered in terms of service and incentivizes inefficiency. For clients, it isn’t the best proxy of value received in terms of service and leaves clients feeling like the only way […]
Were you looking for something that is very well-written but entirely unhelpful to your needs as a lawyer? Well, you’ve come to the right place today. Wait, I now see how that paragraph could be misconstrued in an entirely unflattering way and as an inadvertent passing of judgment on this whole blog. Obviously, I didn’t […]
So, this week’s biggest news in terms of the role of artificial intelligence in the practice of law is the rollout of a new, free AI product from ROSS Intelligence. The product is called EVA, and you can read all about it here. The short version of it is that when the other side files […]
Sometimes titles for posts are tough to come up with, sometimes they are far too easy. This is one of the latter and is offered both with a spirit of tongue-in-cheek silliness and because it is a truly perfect seven-word summary of a recent disciplinary case of note. It is, of note, at least for […]