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Academic

Legal Profession Blog

Cover legal ethics, bar discipline, business practice, the tension between the bar and the academy, ethical theory, and comparative legal professions.
By Alan Childress, Mike Frisch, and Jeff Lipshaw

Post Frequency: 40.8/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 14:56:26

Web Program on Judicial Sanctions for Attorney Misconduct, and Qualcomm, on Friday Mar. 28

Posted on March 26, 2008
Posted by Alan Childress We received this program announcement from the Washington Legal Foundation, and are happy to pass it along. A PDF of the invitation is here, and this is the announcement: The legal system, and the litigation that...

Fees For Striptease Arrangement Reprehensible

Posted on March 26, 2008
The Illinois Review Board has recommended a one-year suspension in a case where the charged misconduct was summarized as follows: "The charges arose out of Erwin?s representation of a client, Amber Quitno, who was employed as an exotic dancer. The...

Ongoing Duty Of Confidentiality

Posted on March 26, 2008
The Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved a conditional admission for a public censure in a matter where an attorney had violated his ongoing duty of confidentiality in disclosures made in a motion to withdraw from representation. This is a problem...

Senator Suspended

Posted on March 26, 2008
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the continued suspension of a lawyer who has been suspended since April 1, 2004 as a result of his conviction of conspriracy to commit offenses against federal program funds. The attorney had served in the...

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Severity Of Misconduct Militates Against Reinstatement

Posted on March 26, 2008
The Oklahoma Supreme Court denied a petition for reinstatement notwithstanding the significant period of time sence disbarment, evidence of good character and the absence of unauthorized practice during the period of disbarment. The strongest factor against reinstatement was the underlying...

Resignation Moots Judicial Misconduct Charges

Posted on March 26, 2008
A New York Justice (who is not a lawyer but had served as a police officer) resigned from office after a complaint alleging judicial misconduct had been filed. The Commission on Judicial Conduct accepted the resignation as dispositive of the...

Plagiarism Detection No Copyright Violation

Posted on March 26, 2008
Here's a link to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on a case involving the use of plagiarism search engine to detect adademic dishonesty. The article reports that a federal court in Virginia "ruled...that a commercial plagiarism detection...

SLAPP Counterclaim Dismissed

Posted on March 26, 2008
The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department affirmed a trial court order granted summary judgment on a counterclaim. The plaintiff, an attorney acting pro se, was negotiating to purchase property to store and use business jet aircraft...

Is "thinking like a lawyer" similar to the "security mindset"?

Posted on March 25, 2008
Michael Froomkin (Miami) in this post makes the point -- yes, we think like paranoid security engineers -- in a humorous way. Asking "whether this sort of demented worldview, one in which you shake things to see how they break,...

The Paperless Office

Posted on March 25, 2008
In a recent ethics opinion, the Alaska Bar Association concludes that a lawyer may maintain copies of documents in electronic format, but may not destroy or alter "original" client documents: "Simply because a lawyer may keep electronic records of his...

Not Law But Tax

Posted on March 25, 2008
Here's a description of what sounds like an interesting bar discipline matter taken from the web page of the Virginia State Bar. Unfortunately, there is no link to the decision. If there is an analysis of the distinction between legal...

Experiment on My Mac

Posted on March 25, 2008
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw This is an experimental post, because I have, at the recommendation of my son-in-law, IT guru Simon Pride, just downloaded a desktop blog manager called MarsEdit. It seems to work just fine with TypePad, which is...

Keeping It Simple

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Billings Gazette reports that the Montana Supreme Court has adopted rules that permit non-lawyers to act as counsel before the Montana Water Court: "The state Supreme Court issued new rules Monday for the Montana Water Court that will allow...

Recusal Required

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee opines that a judge must be recused in a matter where his former fiance is an expert CPA witness. The judge also is obligated to disclose that the former fiance's CPA firm rents office...

Conditional Admission

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Louisiana Supreme Court granted conditional admission to a bar applicant subject to a three-year probationary period. The admitted lawyer must demonstrate during the probationary period that he is making a good faith effort to satisfy his financial obligations as...

Corporation Must Have Counsel

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Illinois ARDC recently filed a complaint alleging that an attorney, among other things, allowed a corporate client to use his name as counsel in litigation that was being conducted pro se. It is alleged that "by allowing the client...

Suit For Fees Dismissed

Posted on March 24, 2008
The Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed an order dismissing a complaint for unpaid legal fees because the law firm failed to give thirty-day Pre-Action Notice pursuant to New Jersey Rule 1:20A-6. The failure to provide the required...

Disbarment Proposed For Fugitive Attorney

Posted on March 24, 2008
An Illinois Hearing Board recently recommended disbarment of attorney who "is believed to be living in Costa Rica" and has not been heard from since the spring of 2006. He was arrested for a series of alcohol-related driving offenses. He...

Big Mac Attack

Posted on March 24, 2008
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I don't do product plugs, but I consider this a public service. My three-year-old laptop Dell laptop, which has served me well from corporate life through three schools and lots of travel, was showing motherboard wear...

Update on Federal Judicial Rules and Complaints: User Comments Wanted

Posted on March 24, 2008
We posted this announcement last week on links to info on the new proposed rules and procedures, for use in federal courts, for handling conduct complaints and claims of disability for federal judges. Here is a follow-up post by Joe...

Judicial Censure with Concurring And Dissenting Views

Posted on March 23, 2008
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct censured a justice of the Queen's County Supreme Court based on a number of instances of improper conduct. In medical malpractice case, his 'bullying tactics were directed towards an attorney who had....

In Real Estate, Beware the Fraudulent Seller, Too

Posted on March 23, 2008
This post from Calculated Risk dissects sloppy journalistic reporting on the housing and loan crises, and (among many insights) wonders -- in the WaPo story My House. My Dream. It Was An Illusion. -- why there's little investigation of the...

Four More Years

Posted on March 23, 2008
An attorney who was suspended for one year in 2006 was suspended for a consecutive period of four years as a result of a consent disposition approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The original discipline was imposed in connection with...

Permanent Disbarment

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Supreme Court of Mississippi accepted an attorney's request for irrevocable resignation and ordered permanent disbarment. Disbarment proceedings were not necessary in light of the resignation. The attorney had entered a guilty plea in federal court to bribery of a...

Restitution Leads To Sanction Reduction

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania approved a joint petition for a two-year suspension in a matter where an attorney had converted to his own use fee payments due to his firm. The court decision appends a lengthy agreed statement of...

Sanction By Default

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin imposed a two-year suspension in a matter in which the accused attorney had defaulted on charges of 17 ethical violations. The misconduct arose from a business transaction that the attorney had entered into with her...

Fairness, Efficiency, and the Reliance Interest in Law Review Article Placement

Posted on March 21, 2008
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw As I continue to get rejections from law review articles editors based on the expedite request I sent out with a deadline date two weeks ago, and having since accepted a publication offer, I have been...

Expert Opinion Insufficient To Establish Legal Malpractice

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a lower court order granting summary judgment to the attorney-defendant in a legal malpractice case. The underlying matter (involving a dispute between two sisters over family real property) had been settled based on the lawyer's...

Ghostwriting Pleadings Is Dishonest In Iowa

Posted on March 21, 2008
An attorney who accepted a new case and retainer fee 15 days after he had been suspended from practice had his law license revoked by the Iowa Supreme Court. One interesting aspect of the case involves the practice of "ghostwriting"...

Form Over Substance

Posted on March 21, 2008
A former name partner of Milberg Weiss was disbarred yesterday by order of the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department. The attorney had been convicted of a federal felony. His contention that the felony had no parallel...

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