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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

Talk about bad career advice....

Posted on November 24, 2010
This is fascinating: some career consultants say that having a "temp" job on your resume hurts your chances of getting a full-time job, and so you should leave it off. The article is here. They did manage to ask someone...

Teaching to do, not to Spot

Posted on November 23, 2010
I found this article utterly fascinating. The basic notion is that legal educators (moi) teach "issue spotting" which teaches ways not to do things, not to help the client accomplish its goals. Broader than our focus here, but an interesting...

Legal Ethics Items (November 23)

Posted on November 23, 2010
From the WSJ Blog Corruption Currents: ?Whistle Blower Program: A Question of Legal Ethics? ?Why do lawyers hate law professors?? asks Bridget Crawford, guest-blogging at The Faculty Lounge The First Amendment Law Prof Blog weighs in on the proposed Kentucky...

Michigan Supreme Court justice secretly taped deliberations

Posted on November 23, 2010
Words fail.

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ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission on Outsourcing

Posted on November 23, 2010
The ABA's Commission on Ethics 20/20 has released some important documents relating to outsourcing. The documents are available here.

Podcast on Ethics 20/20 Commission Issues Papers

Posted on November 23, 2010
In September, the ABA's Commission on Ethics 20/20 released a couple of issues papers concerning lawyers' use of technology. One paper addressed confidentiality-related issues, and the other paper addressed some of the ethics issues associated with lawyers' use of social...

Brennan Center looks at judicial elections: "The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change"

Posted on November 22, 2010
This post at the Brennan Center quotes Justice O'Connor, ""This report, the latest in a series begun in 2000, provides a comprehensive review of the threat posed by money and special interest pressure on fair and impartial courts. . ....

Legal Ethics Items (November 22, 2010)

Posted on November 22, 2010
The PR subgroup of an IRS advisory group issues its annual report. In the UK context, John Flood takes a strong strand against the notion that law schools are producing too many graduates. Australian Professional Liability Blog: "England recognizes new...

Legal Ethics Items (November 21, 2010)

Posted on November 21, 2010
"New rules could change how Hawaii attorneys practice law" (Pacific Business News) "Does India need a legal super-regulator?" (CNBC-TV18) From UDRPCommentaries: Domain name disputes have their own version of MR 3.3 and FRCP 11. Gregory Duhl, Divided Loyalties: The Attorney?s...

Dahlia Lithwick, "Running with Gavels: Justice Need Clearer Rules about Partisan Political Activity"

Posted on November 19, 2010
Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick offers this recap of the recent ethics issues involving Supreme Court justices. I had discussed the issues here and here. For the record, she thinks that SCOTUS justices should decide their conflicts/recusals themselves, but should...

Good luck with those California bar results!

Posted on November 19, 2010
Best of luck to my former students as they await today's release of California bar exam results!

California's Attorney General (and Governor-elect), Jerry Brown, sues an agency the AG represents (or, "the knotty problems of government lawyering")

Posted on November 19, 2010
Story here; complaint here. Jerry Brown, our current AG, former Governor, and future Governor, has undertaken a representation of the Insurance Commissioner against a state agency that the Attorney General represents. Although it all sounds bizarre, the closer you look...

Legal Ethics Items (November 19, 2010)

Posted on November 19, 2010
"Lawyer Resigns from Practice of Law because of Hit List." The lawyer apparently smuggled in a list of witnesses to her client, and eventually a reporter was murdered. The lawyer has resigned from the bar. I don't know about the...

EDNY Bankruptcy Court adopts NY State Standards of Civility

Posted on November 18, 2010
Order and rules here. A lot of them deal with old fashioned common sense and courtesy.

NY law permits firms to avoid civil liability for fraudulent clients

Posted on November 18, 2010
The Ethical Quandary (Hinshaw & Culbertson) has the breakdown on Kirschner v. KPMG LLP, ___ N.E.2d ___, 2010 WL 4116609 (N.Y. 2010), in which in pari delicto remains a powerful defense for law firms.

Law schools gaming the numbers?

Posted on November 18, 2010
Above the Law reports on an inside tip that law schools are producing overly optimistic employment statistics by working harder at getting survey responses from their gainfully employed alums than at getting responses from the unemployed and under-employed...

Thomson Reuters acquires major LPO firm

Posted on November 18, 2010
Thomson Reuters has announced its acquisition of Pangea3, a major legal outsourcing firm with offices in New York, Delhi, and Mumbai. While legal offshoring has been a high-growth area for several years already, I suspect this will increase the profile...

Legal Ethics Items (November 17, 2010)

Posted on November 17, 2010
Booher v. Sheeram. Good deeds sometimes get punished, especially if the formalities aren't minded. "An attorney was facing major surgery and attempting to work with an expert who was unable to get a report completed in a timely fashion. Consequently,...

Goodwin Liu and Others Still Not Confirmed

Posted on November 17, 2010
Once again the Senate has been refusing to vote up or down on many of the President?s judicial nominees. President Bush had to deal with this problem; now it is President Obama?s problem. Given the large number of unfilled judicial...

Legal Ethics Items (November 16, 2010)

Posted on November 16, 2010
Law.com: The percentage of women partners and associates working at NLJ 250 law firms hits 5-year low. Legal Theory Blog: Larry Solum notes that Nelson Lund has posted his article "May Lawyers be Given the Power to Elect Those Who...

LawWithoutWalls

Posted on November 15, 2010
If you are looking to be inspired about new models for teaching legal ethics and professional responsibility, Michele Destefano Beardslee at the University of Miami School of Law is spearheading a new project called LawWithoutWalls that you'll want to check...

What's Wrong with ALF?

Posted on November 15, 2010
No, not ALF the cute fuzzy alien from the 1980's TV show. ALF stands for Alternative Litigation Finance, the subject of a long article in today's New York Times. As discussed in this RAND Corporation paper by Steven Garber, ALF...

First Amendment Protection for Solicitation

Posted on November 15, 2010
I have noticed some inaccuracies and confusion in some casebooks and treatises regarding the First Amendment protection accorded to solicitation of clients, including the distinction between Primus and Ohralik. Here?s an outline. Summary of Three Levels of First Amendment Protection...

John Dehn, "Institutional Advocacy, Constitutional Obligations, and Professional Responsibilities: Arguments for Government Lawyering Without Glasses"

Posted on November 15, 2010
At the Columbia Law Review Sidebar, John Dehn (USMA) offers an interesting critique of Trevor Morrison's proposal that OLC lawyers treat prior memoranda as precedent.

Legal Ethics Items (November 15, 2010)

Posted on November 15, 2010
On Lawyering: a report and video links on the implications of the new "collateral consequences" case, Padilla v. Kentucky. Illinois Lawyer Now: news of a new Illinois bill, the "Non-Recourse Civil Litigation Funding Act to regulate entities that loan money...

Teaching contingent fees with the foreclosure lawyer example

Posted on November 13, 2010
I posted earlier this week about the NYT's coverage on what Florida foreclosure lawyer Peter Ticktin is quoted as describing "a new model, a new paradigm" for paying legal fees--a reverse contingency fee paid with a second mortgage on the...

Keith Swisher, "The Professional Responsibility to Pay for Justice [Formerly Titled: Lawyers as Johns: The Professional Responsibility to Pay Lady Justice] "

Posted on November 12, 2010
Article. Abstract: Lawyers as johns, and judges as prostitutes? Across the United States, attorneys (?johns,? as the analogy goes) are giving campaign money to judges (?prostitutes?) and then asking those judges for legal favors in the form of rulings for...

Legal Ethics Items (November 12, 2010)

Posted on November 12, 2010
When lawyers attack: a lawyer was disciplined for his conduct in a land dispute with a neighbor, during which the lawyer presented "evidence so weak and spurious as would make one question whether it was pulled from thin air." Detroit...

Laurel Rigertas, "Lobbying and Litigating Against 'Legal Bootleggers' - The Role of the Organized Bar in the Expansion of the Courts' Inherent Powers in the Early Twentieth Century "

Posted on November 12, 2010
Article. Abstract: This article examines the historical origins of the judiciary?s inherent power to define the practice of law and argues that the origins of the doctrine might be more grounded in the economic concerns of the legal profession than...

John Lande & Forrest Steven Mosten, "Before You Take a Collaborative Law Case: What the Ethical Rules Say About Conflicts of Interest, Client Screening, and Informed Consent"

Posted on November 12, 2010
Article. Abstract: Collaborative Law (CL) is an innovative dispute resolution process that offers significant benefits but also poses significant non-obvious risks. In CL, the lawyers and clients sign a "participation agreement" promising to use an interest-based approach to negotiation and...

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