Categories
. Legal ethics

Hopefully this will be the first step in streamlining the regulation of lawyer advertising

I commend to your reading a very well done, thorough, and I think (hope) persuasive report from the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers regarding the subject of lawyer advertising.  Although none of us were on the Lawyer Advertising Committee that put this together, several of us on the committee are members of APRL.   You can […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Seems a little soon for this new specialty bar association to exist, but the issues really are growing

There is no question that there continue to be rapid developments arising in the law resulting from the steady trend among states toward reevaluating the legality of marijuana use under their state’s law.  Several states have made it outright legal for recreational use under their state law, while others have legalized only medicinal uses, and […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Death and disbarment

Returning to the office from the holiday weekend, I noticed these two sad and weird stories of lawyers doing inexcusable things that seem to have common threads of death and disbarment running through them.  Many years ago I wrote a humor column for young lawyers. and you can find some of those columns still floating […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Things I don’t understand . . .

I was not born in the South but have lived here for the overwhelming majority of my life.  I’ve never understood, however, the uniquely Southern interest in the history of the Civil War.  And, I don’t mean just at the role-playing levels of Civil War re-enactment events but even at the more subtle levels at […]

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. Legal ethics

A cautionary tale of sorts

Recently, I wrote a little about the problems that can be presented in re-negotiating the terms of a fee agreement with an existing client in light of the requirements of RPC 1.8(a) governing business transactions with clients.  Yesterday’s big legal news in Tennessee involves something that could be flippantly described as an RPC 1.8(a) problem […]

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. Legal ethics

Another wrinkle from that malpractice insurance coverage opinion

Earlier this week, I wrote about the scariness that can come with understanding another way that lawyers’ fates are tied together when they practice law in the same firm: one lawyer failing to disclose a known problem on a malpractice renewal application could lead to loss of coverage for all of the other lawyers in […]

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. Legal ethics

Drunk and disorderly is no way to attend a CLE

The story of a Virginia lawyer who has now been suspended for 6 months as a result of apparently drinking and being drunk while in attendance at a CLE event is making the rounds.   There is a part of me that is a bit surprised that something like this does not happen more often […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Speaking of prejudicial to the administration of justice …

It is not every day that a contempt case against a Tennessee lawyer gets some national coverage, but it also is not every day that a celebrity former television judge and former candidate for District Attorney has a criminal contempt ruling and sentence of 5 days in jail against him affirmed on appeal. The appellate […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Prejudicial to the administration of justice? I’m going to say yes.

I tend to think my credentials as a fan of the First Amendment are pretty solid.  But I feel like I’m standing on pretty solid ground in saying that a lawyer’s effort to pursue a ballot initiative that calls for the murder of people, if it were going on in Tennessee, would justify discipline against […]