Back in September, I wrote a bit about some different perspectives on the purpose of lawyer regulation and commented on a story that discussed a proposal that Colorado had in the works. On April 7, 2016, The Colorado Supreme Court took action to adopt a new “Preamble” that serves as the introduction to its rules […]
Tag: RPC 1.6
It’s an old adage that bad facts make bad law. In the last few weeks, a good number of pieces were written focusing heightened attention on an issue that many lawyers were already stewing about . . . technological vulnerabilities arising from how lawyers and law firms use (and don’t use) technology. Most of these […]
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. […]
The scope of confidentiality lawyers owe to their clients has long been a subject that I find fascinating. Over the last few years, I’ve mulled how its broad scope will continue to play out with current and future generations of both lawyers and clients who routinely, almost even instinctively, share seemingly every detail of their […]
A few months ago, I wrote a post about a frustrating Tennessee Ethics Opinion that offered guidance on lawyers’ obligations when responding to a subpoena for client information by, in part, treating a subpoena as if it were a court order. Last week, the ABA issued Formal Opinion 473, Obligations Upon Receiving a Subpoena or Other Compulsory […]
I like a well written, helpful ethics opinion as much as the next guy. Probably more so, given the statistically low likelihood that anyone standing near me at a given time is also a male lawyer who commits a significant part of their practice to legal ethics and professional responsibility matters. I think I’ve also […]
Thanks to ESPN I’ve long known more about Johnny Manziel than I care to. But, this past week, I learned something I really should never know — why his agent decided to fire Manziel as his client. Up until this past week, Erik Burkhardt was Manziel’s agent. Burkhardt is a law school graduate, but from […]
So far this month, the Professional Ethics Committee for the State Bar of Texas has put out two ethics opinions worthy of some discussion given the issues tackled and the outcomes of each opinion. The more recent of the two, Opinion No. 653, evaluates whether a lawyer acting pro se in a matter has to […]
In a lot of jurisdictions, mine included, formal ethics opinions from the governing disciplinary body are issued, if not rarely, then on a “few and far between” kind of time frame. In North Carolina, on October 23, 2015, 3 were released in one day. Two of them provide overall good advice. One of those two […]
I’ve previously written about a pending rule revision in Tennessee that the BPR initiated and to which the TBA responded here. Last week the Tennessee Supreme Court entered this order and adopted essentially the language that the BPR was seeking and did not incorporate the suggestions the TBA made that would have actually provided the […]