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Ethics

Legal Ethics Forum

Covering Legal Ethics

Post Frequency: 11.2/day

Last Entry: August 14, 2020 at 13:23:48

Sad irony: State Bar victimized by (alleged) staff embezzler

Posted on April 08, 2009
We've all heard countless times about a solo practitioner facing disciplinary consequences because the lawyer's admin embezzled funds. Here's news that the State Bar of California may have suffered a similar fate at the hands of a staffer. The investigator's...

Irate at Irell

Posted on April 07, 2009
This opinion from the Central District of California contains so many ethics issues that it sounds like a legal ethics exam question. In the end, the judge has some rather harsh words for Irell & Manella for jointly representing a...

Our Most Serious Ethical Issue

Posted on April 03, 2009
The young lawyer who resigned from the Walton County Public Defender?s office because she was not able to give her client?s the effective assistance of counsel, is unquestionably a hero. Unfortunately, she is also guilty of serious and sustained unethical...

Our Most Serious Ethical Issue

Posted on April 03, 2009
The young lawyer who resigned from the Walton County Public Defender?s office because she was not able to give her clients the effective assistance of counsel, is unquestionably a hero. Unfortunately, she is also guilty of serious and sustained unethical...

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Stories of Note

Posted on April 02, 2009
Adam Cohen, a prominent journalist on legal issues, is getting a lot of attention for this editorial. He paints a rather dire picture of the future of American law firms, and unlike John Steele's post from yesterday, this story is...

Globetrotting Law Firms

Posted on April 02, 2009
Jay Krishnan has posted a new paper, Globetrotting Law Firms. He workshopped this here at St. Thomas last semester, and it is well worth a read. Here's the abstract: Despite the current financial crisis, prestigious American and British law firms...

state bar proposes to cap profits per partner

Posted on April 01, 2009
ghastley news for partners but my prediction is: partners are never gonna give them up (link).

Survey Says...

Posted on March 30, 2009
Fifty-five legal ethics professors responded to my survey, which asked people to identify the other courses that they teach. There are roughly 500-600 people who regularly teach legal ethics (at least in the United States), which means that the response...

Spanish court ponders criminal charges against US "torture memo" lawyers

Posted on March 29, 2009
It's not clear that the assertion of universal jurisdiction will proceed, but it's interesting that the focus is on the lawyers and not the policy-makers or the interrogators. Story here.

Judging lawyers by their clients (part 58); Karen Gillibrand and the tobacco industry

Posted on March 29, 2009
It's a familiar topic at this blog: do we judge lawyers by their clients? The latest episode has been sparked by a NYT article about Karen Gillibrand's work for tobacco industry clients. Sandy Levinson blogs on it here. There appears...

Judging lawyers by their clients (part 58); Kirsten Gillibrand and the tobacco industry

Posted on March 29, 2009
It's a familiar topic at this blog: do we judge lawyers by their clients? The latest episode has been sparked by a NYT article about Kirsten Gillibrand's work for tobacco industry clients. Sandy Levinson blogs on it here. There appears...

Positive Development for the LSC

Posted on March 27, 2009
Congress is considering legislation that will increase funding for the underfunded Legal Services Corporation and lift many of the restrictions on the kind of legal work that recipients of LSC funding can perform. The story is here.

Odds and ends (March 27, 2009)

Posted on March 27, 2009
Should a supreme court justice for the state of Washington have recused himself in a case that affected his own lawsuit? . . . . In the wake of sexual relations between a lawyer and legal aid clients, there's discussion...

Other teaching interests?

Posted on March 26, 2009
I know that law teachers who read this blog typically teach legal ethics/professional responsibility. But I've always wondered what is the most common other teaching subject in a legal ethics scholar's course package. The question is not simple curiosity...

Tung Yin (Iowa) on "lawfare" and access to US courts

Posted on March 26, 2009
Tung Yin (Iowa) has published this paper, "Boumediene and Lawfare," which assesses the possibility that giving detainees and terrorists access to US courts will lead to debilitating "lawfare." Among the other techniques considered in the article, Yin analyzes the monitoring...

Is this unusual?

Posted on March 26, 2009
A proposed settlement in a class action against a Canadian bank includes a requirement that the bank contribute $14 million to a fund which will be used for initiatives related to legal ethics and professionalism at the 16 Canadian common...

Supreme Court holds that trial lawyer's advice to drop insanity plea was not ineffective assistance of counsel

Posted on March 25, 2009
Opinion here. News story here. The high court took a practical view in a case where criminal defense counsel had urged the client to drop a plea of "not guilty by insanity." The opinion is a useful glimpse into the...

Con man's scam included false references to famous lawyers

Posted on March 24, 2009
The SEC has sued Albert Hu for allegedly raising $5 million in investor money. Hu told investors that he was represented by reputable law firms -- which didn't actually represent him.

Keep contemporaneous time sheets -- and then be candid with the court.

Posted on March 24, 2009
Story here.

Ted Schneyer to speak at Georgetown Center for the Study of the Legal Profession (April 20th)

Posted on March 24, 2009
He'll be speaking one of the most interesting current topics "Developments in the UK and Australia: How Might They Affect the Regulation of the Legal Practice in in the United States?" The event and reception will be held at the...

What a Reasonable Person "Might," "Could," and "Would" Do

Posted on March 24, 2009
The Comment to Canon 2 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges defines appearance of impropriety as follows: "An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds, with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances disclosed by a reasonable inquiry,...

Do law firm layoffs make economic sense?

Posted on March 17, 2009
Law prof Joan Williams and her colleagues at the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) argue that it would be more economically sensible for firms to reduce attorney hours (and pay) than to lay off attorneys: The scenario that PAR examines...

Treating client security funds as state revenue

Posted on March 17, 2009
Will budget deficits tempt states to dip into their client security funds? Apparently so.

The voters have spoken, the bastards!

Posted on March 12, 2009
In this semester's law of lawyering class at UC-Berkeley, I initially banned teh internets (it's a series of tubes invented by a Nobel laureate who briefly attended law school). But I promised the students that they could vote on internet...

Bootle Inn of Court: The Old Days

Posted on March 12, 2009
I'm a member of the William Augustus Bootle Inn of Court, and tonight at our meeting the group celebrated the judge's views of professionalism. Most of his speeches were based upon the old Canons, and it really struck me in...

The voters have spoken. [edited]

Posted on March 12, 2009
[Just in case this post might be misunderstood, I've substantially edited it.] In this semester's law of lawyering class at UC-Berkeley, I initially banned internet access but allowed them to vote mid-way through the semester on whether they wanted it...

Drafting Problem with New Model Rule 1.10

Posted on March 09, 2009
The recently amended Model Rule 1.10 permits a law firm to erect a screen around a recently hired attorney to prevent that lawyer's conflicts from being imputed to the rest of the firm. At least that's what I thought it...

Sanctions for Former OLC Lawyers?

Posted on March 09, 2009
An article in today's New York Times surveys yet another iteration of the debate over the role of lawyers in the Bush Administration's Office of Legal Counsel in crafting legal policy regarding detainee policy, interrogation, and executive power. One reason...

An Ethical Obligation to Find a Cheaper Alternative?

Posted on March 05, 2009

The Judicial Recusal Case

Posted on March 03, 2009

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