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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

Spoliation of evidence issue raised in Guantanamo

Posted on June 10, 2008
Story here. The JAG lawyer detailed to represent Omar Khadr, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, says that the Pentagon instructed interrogators to destroy notes that would have provided useful evidence for the defense. (Disclaimer: I've worked with Kuebler on various matters...

Welcome to Our Newest Co-Blogger -- Sarah Cravens

Posted on June 10, 2008
Welcome to Professor Sarah Cravens, our newest co-b logger. Sarah is an associate professor of law at the University of Akron School of Law, and she focuses her research on judicial ethics. In particular, Sarah writes on the role of...

Virtues and Meaningful Constraints

Posted on June 10, 2008
Paul Horwitz has posted on SSRN an elegant review essay of Judge Posner?s How Judges Think and Jeff Powell?s Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial Decision. Horwitz, who writes that his head is with Posner and his heart is...

Sasha Volokh writes, " . . . legal ethics is to actual ethics as Madison, Wisconsin is to James Madison..."

Posted on June 09, 2008
C'mon readers, we can do better than that. Post your entries in the comments and the winner (selected solely in my discretion) will get a copy of this book. We are looking for entries that begin "legal ethics is to...

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Some Interesting Tidbits

Posted on June 09, 2008
We're Not Going to Take It. No, not The Who's classic song, but the response of clients to the proffer by firms of blanket prospective consents. There's an interesting insight into the norms and customs in this article, here. The...

Harriet Johnson: lawyer activist

Posted on June 07, 2008
Her NYT obit. (nod to Althouse)

UC-Berkeley's new summer-school LLM

Posted on June 06, 2008
Can you help international students grasp the US approach to law and hone their English language skills in two summer-school segments of three months each? UC-Berkeley will try. Bill Henderson recently suggested that the LLM degree is in danger of...

"Shot from Canons"

Posted on June 04, 2008
I have had a number of requests for copies of my Commencement Address, titled ?Shot from Canons: The Ethical Perils of Sardonic Humor,? which was give at the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Clown School in Sarasota, Florida on April...

"Overlawyering" in the transactional setting.

Posted on June 04, 2008
The Recorder is reporting that "A venture capitalist fed up with overpriced and overly fastidious lawyers broke the code of silence among money men to vent his frustrations on a blog Sunday." The VC complains of spending money on a...

Recent studies on pro bono practice in the US

Posted on June 02, 2008
At the just concluded Law & Society meeting in Montreal, there was an interesting panel on pro bono work. Lots of empirical studies are being done and much (but not all) of the focus is on pro bono by big...

Perception and Ethical Decisionmaking

Posted on June 01, 2008
Lawyers sometimes run afoul of the legal ethics rules because they don't see a situation the right way. For example, a lawyer might fail to turn over a discoverable smoking gun document, because the attorney mistakenly convinces herself that the...

Suggestion for Blog Readers

Posted on May 30, 2008
I had a wonderful dinner last night at the ABA's National Conference on Professional Responsibility with some readers of this blog. It was nice to chat with some people who stop in to read what we have to say and...

Fortune Magazine on Legal Ethics Experts

Posted on May 30, 2008
You may recall a vigorous exchange last year regarding Professor Bill Simon's scathing critique of several legal ethics experts. (Here, here, here, and here.) Fortune Magazine now has a story about the dust up, which you can find here.

Live from the LSA conference

Posted on May 30, 2008
Andy Perlman is at the ABA-CPR conference in Boston, and I'm at the LSA conference in Montreal. We've had a number of great panels on the legal profession, which were meta-organized by Bill Henderson of IU. Lots of data and...

Interesting Patent Prosecution Malpractice Case Filed

Posted on May 28, 2008
You can read about it here, but essentially the claim is that a Morgan Lewis partner botched a patent application (negligently, apparently), and then intentionally tried to cover up the mistake. The plaintiff claims millions in damages. i've been watching...

A Wrongful Incarceration/Execution Exception to the Duty of Confidentiality

Posted on May 28, 2008
The Northwestern Law Review is publishing this piece by John Marshall's Colin Miller on whether the Model Rules should have a wrongful incarceration/execution exception to the duty of confidentiality. Professor Miller draws on the Alton Logan case, which we have...

Another Metadata-related Gaffe

Posted on May 28, 2008
Blacking out text in a word file doesn't erase it. But a plaintiff's firm suing GE in a $500m class action didn't realize that... and put a whole slew of GE confidential information in the public domain as a result....

AG Mukasey tells BC law grads not to shy away from tough calls (and uses the government lawyers dealing with national security as the context)

Posted on May 27, 2008
Story here. Text of speech below the fold. Mukasey makes the distinction between legal advice and policy advice, and suggests that a lawyer sometimes permits clients to do things that the lawyer wishes the client wouldn't do.

An Interesting Wrinkle for Outsourcing

Posted on May 24, 2008
There has been a lot of recent talk about the outsourcing of legal work, especially to India. I have heard a variety of concerns about the trend, but one that I had not considered is that the United States government...

A Government Lawyer Ethics Puzzle

Posted on May 22, 2008
Martha Coakley was once a district attorney in Massachusetts, and her office was inside a state courthouse. That courthouse apparently had health and safety issues, so Coakley brought a lawsuit against the Commonwealth to force the government to take remedial...

Dinner at the ABA Conference

Posted on May 19, 2008
Because last year's ABA Conference/blog reception went so well, I thought it would be fun to get together again next week at the Conference in Boston. I propose meeting for dinner on Thursday, May 29 at 6:30, which is right...

Our New Look

Posted on May 19, 2008
Can you tell that we're busy grading? I'd rather play around with the colors on the blog than grade my exams. It's cheaper than re-painting my house and more fun than reorganizing my sock drawer.

For Your Summer Reading List

Posted on May 16, 2008
In addition to Steve Lubet's new book, which David McGowan referenced below, you should also take a look at the new AALS PR newsletter, which The Legal Profession blog has posted on its site. The newsletter highlights recent scholarship and...

Article about Terry Stewart, who litigated the same sex marriage cases in California

Posted on May 15, 2008
In light of the huge news from California -- declaring unconsitutional the ban on same sex marriage -- you might want to read this great profile of Terry Stewart, who litigated the marriage cases.

Lubet on Honesty

Posted on May 12, 2008
Steve Lubet is always worth reading, so I am looking forward to reading his new book The Importance of Being Honest. I'll post a few comments when I have. DM

Bombs Don't Kill People, Lawyers For Bombers Kill People

Posted on May 09, 2008
Or so, it seems, the Wall Street Journal opines today. Apparently Abdullah Salih Al Ajmi, who blew himself up in order to murder others, had been detained at Guantanamo Bay. A Kuwaiti, Al Ajmi had been represented by Shearman &...

Immigration Court Ethics

Posted on May 08, 2008
Judge Posner recently issued a scathing critique of the immigration court system. He criticized the competence of immigration judges and lamented the dearth of qualified lawyers to handle immigration matters. For more on these issues, you might want to take...

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