With little to no fanfare (and in fact I only know they came out because I happened to go look on the website out of curiosity), the BPR has now issued the two opinions it had put out in draft form for public comment earlier this year. Both of these opinions were adopted on August […]
Tag: RPC 1.4
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Hot Censure Summer in Tennessee
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 […]
It’s getting a bit commonplace now, isn’t it? You go years without doing a two-part blogpost and then you do another one the same week? Kind of takes all the excitement out of the idea of a two-part post, doesn’t it? Sure. But in my defense, the Tennessee BPR went roughly 3 years before issuing […]
Lawyers and law firms have long struggled – at least during the length of my career – with whether they can, or should, include a provision in their contracts with clients that would require arbitration of some, or all, kinds of disputes. In situations where a local or state bar association offers a free, voluntary […]
The Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility of the ABA has been on something of a bit of a “spree” when it comes to the issuance of ethics opinions. (At least, it feels like it.) In the last 18 months, it has issued 10 opinions. The most recent one is ABA Formal Op. 487 […]
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 […]
I’d long thought that the ethical issues associated with representing clients held in Guantanamo would be the most flagrant example in my lifetime of our government purposefully making it impossible for lawyers to fulfill obligations to their clients. Sad to say that I may just have been wrong about that. (P.S. I only started this […]
I’m writing from Boise where tomorrow I’m delighted to have the chance to speak on legal ethics for the Idaho Prosecuting Attorneys Association. (I’m also delighted that the weather is unseasonably warm at the moment.) Last year I had the chance to do a similar presentation for the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference. Prosecuting attorneys […]
This week the New York City Bar has put out a very important, and I think very helpful, ethics opinion to address a real, practical concern for lawyers: what, if anything, can be done to protect confidential client information when traveling and crossing the border into the U.S.? NY City Bar Formal Op. 2017-5 lays […]
I’ve written a couple of times in the past about the status of the Tennessee Bar Association’s petition seeking to have the Tennessee Supreme Court adopt essentially all of the ABA Ethics 20/20 changes. Yesterday, the Tennessee Supreme Court entered an order doing just that – effective immediately — which now adds Tennessee to the […]