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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

Renee Knake: Contemplating Free Speech and Congressional Efforts to Constrain Legal Advice

Posted on April 07, 2010
Article here from one of our own co-bloggers. Abstract: This essay addresses an important intersection between attorney regulation and free speech that has received little attention by the legal academy - the question of whether the First Amendment protects the...

California appellate court recognizes screening for lateral who had learned confidences at prior firm, but hadn't worked on the case

Posted on April 07, 2010
In the new Kirk v. First American Title case, a California Court of Appeal recognized that screening of a lateral can prevent imputation (or, as California calls it, "vicarious" DQ) of the lateral's disqualification to others at the new firm....

Follow-up on Caperton Case

Posted on April 07, 2010
The owner of the coal mine that was the site of the recent disaster in West Virginia in which over two dozen miners were killed is the Massey Energy Company. Massey is the party that lost 5-4 in the Supreme...

Immigration lawyers; iPads for lawyers; other news.

Posted on April 06, 2010
Alberto Bernabe has a post about the DC opinion holding that immigration lawyers should not execute Affidavits of Support for their clients. The opinion is here. . . . . . Lots of thoughts about how lawyers might use iPads....

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More negative reaction to New Jersey's opinion on virtual offices and the "bona fide office rule"

Posted on April 06, 2010
Carolyn Elefant at My Shingle and Stephanie Kimbro at Virtual Law Practice had negative reactions and explain how the rule impacts those lawyers (many of them women) who are balancing work and family duties. (Steve Lubet had some interesting comments...

Belated 'Happy 5th Anniversary' to ourselves

Posted on April 06, 2010
It seems that we missed our 5th anniversary at Legal Ethics Forum. Here's one of our earliest substantive posts.

Litigation Funding in Australia

Posted on April 06, 2010
Four Australian legal scholars/attorneys have posted a new paper, "Litigation Funding in Australia." If you, like me, did not even know that Australia has a litigation funding industry, you should read the paper. Here's the abstract: Litigation funding has been...

Reading an Opponent's Password Protected Files

Posted on April 06, 2010
Here's an interesting twist on the increasingly discussed problem of metadata mining. As part of e-discovery, a defendant sent plaintiff's counsel numerous electronic documents. The plaintiff's lawyer shared the documents with the plaintiff himself, including numerous documents that the defendant...

International Legal Ethics Conference IV extends early bird registration

Posted on April 05, 2010
. . . . to June 1st. This will be a Law & Society style, smorgasbord conference with something for everyone. Speaker list here. Carol Lamm, the current ABA president, will speak.

Revolving door at SEC?

Posted on April 05, 2010
WSJ law blog covers the story.

Don't Ask Don't Tell Institutionalizes Dishonesty and Violates Government Ethics

Posted on April 05, 2010
Changing this policy is presumably once again toward the top of the agenda at the White House and perhaps in Congress. The policy has not been discussed extensively by critics as a problem of government ethics. It should be. I...

Welcome to Richard Painter

Posted on April 05, 2010
We're glad to announce that Richard Painter has joined us at Legal Ethics Forum. He's at Minnesota now. Some of his many accomplishments are below the fold. (SSRN page) Welcome, Richard! Richard W. Painter S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate...

New Qualcomm ruling is out

Posted on April 05, 2010
I haven't read more than the first page. Download Qualcommnew UPDATE: A combination of a failure to communicate, poor e-discovery procedures, and a client who wasn't candid with outside counsel. But no sanctions. It's worth studying closely within firms...

More thoughts on Padilla v. Kentucky and the Court's lawyering focus this term

Posted on April 03, 2010
The Court's opinion in Padilla v. Kentucky this week confirms a number of notable trends among the lawyering cases this term. One of those trends is the special attention that the ABA has been getting both during oral arguments (see...

US improperly wiretapped communication between Islamic charity and its lawyers, Judge rules.

Posted on April 01, 2010
Story at WSJ blog. Opinion here.

Supreme Court of Canada decision on lawyer withdrawal from criminal proceedings

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a significant decision on the question of judicial authority over withdrawal by counsel in scheduled criminal proceedings: R. v. Cunningham 2010 SCC 10 . In a unanimous decision, the Court overturned the Yukon...

Court Holds Lawyer's Misadvice Constitutionally Incompetent, but Declines to Decide Issue of Prejudice

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Supreme Court issued an opinion in Padilla v. Kentucky today (see previous posts on this case here and here). As background, the petitioner, Jose Padilla, had been a lawful permanent resident of the United States over forty years (and...

New Jersey weighs in on privilege when using company email account

Posted on March 30, 2010
Legal Profession Blog reports on this issue. Result: such emails may still be privileged in NJ, so don't read what isn't yours!

New Jersey nixes virtual offices?

Posted on March 30, 2010
George Conk reports on an advisory opinion from New Jersey that appears to shut down the "virtual office" option. I had a strong negative reaction to the opinion, although I agree that lawyers ought to be "find-able" by courts, clients,...

Mark Cuban strikes back at SEC lawyers

Posted on March 30, 2010
Story at the WSJ blog. You have to be careful with email chatter -- especially non-privileged email chatter.

The Wisconsin diploma privilege settlement

Posted on March 30, 2010
Christine Hurt breaks it down, at the Conglomerate.

articles on Caperton, the OLC, and aggregate litigation

Posted on March 29, 2010
James Sample, "Caperton: Correct Today; Compelling Tomorrow." Abstract: This symposium article asserts that Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. is correct in result; correct in its narrowness; and correct in calling on courts to be more rigorous in recusal than...

what's going on (March 29, 2010)

Posted on March 29, 2010
The ABA Journal, on cloud computing. And here's a report from MacLawyer on the ABA Tech Show 2010. . . . . . Letting outside investors take ownership interests will lead to money-launderers and drug barons running firms? Really? ....

Legal vs. Political Action by the President

Posted on March 29, 2010
My reading list is getting longer! At the New Republic book reviews website, Eric Posner has a review of a new book by Benjamin Kleinerman, The Discretionary President: The Promise and Peril of Executive Power. Kleinerman argues that the President...

Ordinary Injustice, Checklists, and the Court's Focus on Bad Lawyering

Posted on March 27, 2010
As readers of this blog know, I've been struck by the Court's heightened attention to lawyering this term. The cases seem to fall into one of two categories: access to sound lawyering and concerns about bad lawyering. The second category...

Outside the Box v. Travel Caddy

Posted on March 27, 2010
In this Federal Circuit decision (2/1/2010): A lawyer for King & Spaulding had been an expert witness for plaintiff in the trial court in connection with an application for counsel fees form defendant. Counsel fees were denied. On appeal of...

what's going on (March 26, 2010)

Posted on March 26, 2010
A Minnesota lawyer appears to be admitting that his high-profile matter was inadvertently in violation of the current client rule. (It can happen at big firms -- typically, when the conflicts clearing system failed.) Suppose that the lawyer did the...

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