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. 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 […]

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. Legal ethics

Independence of professional judgment, and other thoughts spurred by the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services

April 2016 has brought another iteration of a seemingly, endless, (yet kind of potentially pointless unless you think the politics of the situation will somehow play out differently from the past) debate: whether some entity within the ABA is attempting to usher into reality a world in which people other than lawyers will be allowed […]

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. Legal ethics

The Department of Labor’s Final “Persuader” Rule – Part 2 of 2

So, yesterday, I started writing about the potential ramifications for lawyers of the adoption by the Department of Labor of its final “persuader” rule which will become effective on April 25, 2016, but will only be applicable to agreements entered into on and after July 1, 2016.  You can catch up on part 1 here. […]

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. Legal ethics

Lawyering vicariously.

Lawyers in private practice work in a variety of settings ranging from solo practice to law firms with thousands of lawyers in scores of offices.  Lawyers also practice in a variety of business structures ranging from d/b/a arrangements on one end to Swiss Verein models. My rough guess would be that the majority of United […]

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. 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 […]

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. Legal ethics

Digital assets and ethical issues – good news from the Tennessee legislature

Last week the Chattanooga Estate Planning Council was kind enough to have me come to speak to them about ethical issues arising from the uncertain world of the law regarding digital assets.  They were gracious hosts and, to the extent there were important ethics issues to really discuss, we managed to cover that most, if […]

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. Legal ethics

Tennessee Supreme Court takes long-awaited action to smooth admissions problems

Yesterday, the Tennessee Supreme Court entered an order that addresses a variety of issues I have written about on a number of prior occasions.  You can take in the entire order setting out all of the new provisions here.  In addition to making a spot change to Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 6 and a revision to […]

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. Legal ethics

Lawyer ethics rules are public policy statements. Of course they are.

There is a lot of activity that can take place at the intersection of the lawyer ethics rules and public policy.  There can be issues that aren’t addressed by lawyer ethics rules (or at least not fully addressed) but that are addressed as a matter of state public policy.  What there really can’t be though […]

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. Legal ethics

Stacked decks, standards of review, and the RPC 8.1 duty to cooperate

In many jurisdictions, disciplinary proceedings against lawyers are referred to as being “quasi-criminal” in nature.  If you ask lawyers who defend lawyers in disciplinary proceedings, you will often hear them agree that the nature of the work can feel a good bit like criminal defense work, but with two pretty universal exceptions that make the […]

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. Legal ethics

Two updates and a (hidden) microphone.

A few items for your consideration over this coming long, Labor Day weekend. The first is an update on a proposed ethics opinion made the subject of an earlier post.  The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors has now ultimately decided to reject the approach that had been recommended by its advertising subcommittee, which proposed that […]