A fundamental precept for lawyers ought to be that, when it comes to clients, the only things that are worse than neglecting them are lying to them and stealing from them. For a shorthand version of that, if you find yourself failing to communicate with a client for 57 days (you know, the amount of […]
I’ve written once before about the dynamics for disciplinary defense lawyers in trying to work through precedent based on limited information when a variety of disparate conduct by lawyers all results in the same level of discipline. In that post, the variety of discipline was public censure. And you won’t be shocked to hear that […]
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 […]
One mistake. What should be the price of one mistake? To some extent, the answer to those questions for lawyers and lawyer discipline matters ought to be foreordained in two consecutive paragraphs of the Scope portion of the ABA Model Rules: [19] ….the rules presuppose that whether or not discipline should be imposed for a […]
Three recent cases involving lawyers alleged to have been sleeping during trial (actually only two about sleeping lawyers, one about a lawyer pretending to sleep) leave me feeling like there has to be the germ of a worthwhile point to be made in there somewhere, but after drafting and redrafting this post in spare moments […]
If you’re a lawyer, then many days you may find yourself either complaining that you are too busy or that you aren’t busy enough. Rare is the time for lawyers (in my experience) when they think their workload lands in a “just right” kind of spot. There actually can be such a thing as too […]