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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

"[California] State Bar Dumps Top Prosecutor" (This is big in California discipline circles.)

Posted on June 05, 2009
Story here. Scott Drexel, the state bar's top prosecutor, will not be re-appointed. Rumors are swirling and it's hard to get a handle on what drove the decision. Everyone agrees that Drexel implemented more aggressive policies, that his office prosecuted...

AG Holder reverses Mukasey's position on ineffective assistance claims in immigration matters

Posted on June 04, 2009
Nod to the Blog of the Legal Times: AG Eric Holder has reversed the decision of the prior AG, Michael Mukasey, in the Compean matter. Mukasey had decided that immigration court affords no constitutional guarantee against ineffective assistance of counsel...

Jasmine v. Marvell (the "forgot to hang up and left incriminating voicemail with the opposing lawyer" case) dismissed

Posted on June 04, 2009
Jasmine v. Marvell, one of the most discussed ethics cases in years, has been dismissed. It's the case where the general counsel for the defendant telephoned the general counsel at the plaintiff, left a voicemail message, inadvertently didn't hang up,...

Lying on application leads to loss of insurance coverage

Posted on June 04, 2009
Imagine that you were honest on your insurance application but your partner was not -- and that the policy was voided for dishonesty. Details at The Ethical Quandary,

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Confidentiality or accountability?

Posted on June 03, 2009
David Weiden of Indiana University is conducting a research study of current and former law clerks of the Supreme Court of Canada. Unlike (as I understand it) USSC clerks, SCC clerks are not the subject of much public discussion, and...

$3 billion post-insolvency claim against biglaw

Posted on June 02, 2009
Here's news of a $3 billion claim against a biglaw firm for an alleged conflict during the death throes of a large client. The firm vehemently denies the claim, which is being asserted by a liquidator. Post-insolvency entities, such as...

Women and success in biglaw

Posted on June 02, 2009
Two recent articles worth checking out. American Lawyer explored the statistics showing that women lawyers are faring better in the AmLaw 200 than in the AmLaw 100. And the ABA and others reported on the new article by Kenneth Dau-Schmidt...

Egg on My Face(book)

Posted on June 01, 2009
The Philadelphia Bar recently concluded that a lawyer should not use misleading tactics to gain access to an adverse witness's Facebook page. Today, the ABA Journal is covering another juicy legal ethics story involving Facebook. According to the story, "[a]...

Empathy and clothing

Posted on May 30, 2009
After my post on the NYT column on lawyers? dress, there was an interesting discussion of the ?minefield? it presents. Since that time, there?s also been an interesting discussion of the value of empathy on the site, which got me...

Mercer Symposium on Ethics in Digital Issues Posted on Line

Posted on May 29, 2009
Monroe Freedman, Andy Perlman, and a slew of others participated at Mercer Law School's symposium on ethical issues in the digital age, and the transcript is available on line, here. I urge you to read especially Professor Freedman's opening remarks,...

The Current State of PR Courses at American Law Schools

Posted on May 29, 2009
I've been working with Professor Laurel Terry (Penn St.), the current chair of the AALS PR section, and Professor Margaret Raymond (Iowa), one the section's executive committee members, to learn more about the inner workings of a typical PR class...

US Supremes overrule Michigan v. Jackson

Posted on May 27, 2009
In a 5-4 decision, in Montejo v. Louisiana (oral argument here), the US Supremes (urged on by the Obama administration, according to the NYT), over-ruled MIchigan v. Jackson. Articles here and here. Key graf: The high court, in a 5-4...

The Future of BigLaw Economics

Posted on May 27, 2009
Here is a link to a forthcoming Suffolk Law Review article by Northwestern Professor John P. Heinz, the widely cited legal profession scholar. His entry in the Suffolk Law Review is entitled "When Law Firms Fail," and it has an...

On Empathy in Judging

Posted on May 24, 2009
President Obama?s desire to appoint judges who have empathy is reminiscent of Ninth Circuit Judge John T. Noonan?s lecture and book, Persons and Masks of the Law. Judge Noonan (then a law professor at Berkeley) presented it as the Holmes...

Interesting Piece on Firm Restrictions on Twitter/Face book

Posted on May 22, 2009
The article, and links to other articles, is here. In the academic area, I personally love facebook and the relationship building that it can achieve, but some people find it crosses student-professor boundary.

What not to wear?

Posted on May 22, 2009
The NYT has a story about lawyer fashion faux pas and the possible effect on a client's ability to obtain justice (here). I have recently blogged about the Law Society of Alberta's requirement that students taking the bar admission course...

Moral sensitivity - not quite...

Posted on May 21, 2009
The law governing lawyers and public officials is relatively extensive, but I've always thought that even when understood as a matter of legal compliance, keeping out of ethical difficulties does require some moral sensitivity, an ability to feel when something...

Prosecutor turned defense counsel turned (alleged) conspirator to murder witnesses

Posted on May 21, 2009
NYT has the story and a profile of Paul Bergin.

Lockstep compensation in Asia

Posted on May 20, 2009
This article recounts the use of lockstep compensation in Asia. Although lockstep is considered a "relic" in the US, when handled properly it can incent team playing within a firm.

Biglaw lawyers: never out of reach?

Posted on May 20, 2009
This amusing article recounts the efforts of a Cleary partner to ban those "out of office" email messages. According to that partner, the messages are acceptable only while the lawyer is on a long flight, and even then the lawyer...

Amazing lawyer ads

Posted on May 19, 2009
If, like me, you derive a guilty pleasure from cheesy TV ads for lawyers, check out the entries on this page. It begins with my all-time favorite: Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro.

Responding to Mr. Smartass

Posted on May 19, 2009
If you teach legal ethics long enough, you will eventually meet Mr. Smartass. He's the guy at a wedding, bar mitzvah, or some other social gathering who is, put simply, a smart ass. You're introduced to him, and he quickly...

Guest Blogger Alex Long's Ten Things You May or May Not Know About Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.

Posted on May 18, 2009
Professor Alex Long has passed along this wonderful post in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision in the Caperton case: Thanks to Andrew Perlman, who invited me to blog a little about the Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. case...

Ten Things You May or May Not Know About Caperton -- Part II

Posted on May 18, 2009
This is a continuation of guest blogger Alex Long's first post on Caperton, which can be found here. (6) It wasn?t just the general election that was ugly. The Democratic primary, in which McGraw was challenged by circuit court judge...

Op-eds offer defense strategies for authors of torture memos

Posted on May 17, 2009
Michael Stokes Paulsen and Victoria Toensing outline possible defense strategies for the authors of the torture memos. Brian Tamanaha disagrees with Paulsen.

Updates on biglaw lawyers near financial scandals

Posted on May 14, 2009
Wall Street Journal's law blog has updates on Tom Sjoblom of Proskauer, who represented Stanford Financial, and on Mayer Brown's Joseph Collins, the former outside counsel to Refco whose criminal trial started this week.

Wow

Posted on May 13, 2009
$72m malpractice verdict based on inequitable conduct theory. Be careful out there. DM

The Evolving Law on Metadata

Posted on May 13, 2009
There are two new ethics opinions on metadata, one from New Hampshire (New Hampshire Bar Ass'n Ethics Comm., Op. 2008-2009/4, 4/16/09) and another from Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Bar Ass'n Comm. on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Formal Op...

Piomelli on Democratic Lawyering

Posted on May 13, 2009
Professor Ascanio Piomelli of the UC Hastings College of Law has posted a new paper entitled ?The Challenge of Democratic Lawyering? on SSRN. The abstract is as follows: This essay, written for the Fordham Law Review's symposium on The Lawyer's...

C.S. Peirce on law and the search for truth

Posted on May 13, 2009
In comments on an exchange on the infamous non-hang-up hang-up case, Monroe left me and Clare with the query: What ever happened to the search for truth? That sent me in search of my misplaced copy of The Essential Peirce,...

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