Categories
Legal ethics

“It’s Groundhog Day… again.”

This past week included one of our nation’s most heralded fake holidays. Groundhog’s Day. Silly occasion, but still a really good movie, of course. But, playing off of the theme of repeating events and disappointing outcomes, we return to the oft-discussed topic of lawyers trying to respond to online criticism. We’ve covered in the past […]

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. Legal ethics

It is, very often, anti-social media.

You may recall that not too long ago I wrote a bit about a Tennessee Supreme Court opinion that I thought was a bit wrongly-framed from its opening sentence. It was the one that was really about why lawyers shouldn’t help people try to plan and cover up crimes but started: “This case is a […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Bad judgment leads to bad judgment.

A Tennessee disciplinary matter has made some national news this past week, so what I am writing about might be something you’ve heard about already. It involves a Tennessee lawyer who has been given a 4-year suspension from practice, with one-year of active suspension for providing advice over Facebook to a woman about how she […]

Categories
Judicial Ethics

The good and bad of social media on display

Today’s title refers to two developments worth writing about that caught my attention in the last little bit that only have the issue of social media in common.  I will try to let the reader decided which is which (or if both are both) in due course. The first development is an example of a lawyer […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Revisiting things not to do in court – Friday edition

Being in between stops for the Roadshow until next week, but still having two more to do (Wednesday in Chattanooga and Thursday in Knoxville), this will again be a bit more of a short(ish), punchy offering. A few months ago I wrote a post about things not to do in court that discussed two incidents. […]

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. Legal ethics

Coming to praise rather than to bury – West Virginia edition

Some, including possibly me, will argue that the greatest thing to come out of West Virginia is the My Brother, My Brother, and Me podcast.  But today, I write about another very positive contribution out of West Virginia, a very good, very thorough ethics opinion that overflows with common-sense with respect to social media issues for […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Things not to do in court.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a little about two instances of lawyers, both involving murder cases, getting in a bit of a pinch based on what was portrayed as bad behavior in the courtroom.  One lawyer ended up being escorted from the courtroom for attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of someone.  I think […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

“Does this require a response?”

“Does this require a response?”  Print those words out and tape them to the top of your monitor or laptop screen.  They are words to live by. Practicing law is stressful and always has been.  Lawyers have always known that they can make mistakes that destroy their client’s life or financial situation and potentially their […]