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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

No Malpractice For Reasonable, Tactical Litigation Decision

Posted on March 19, 2009
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed an order granting summary judgment to Finnegan Henderson LLP in a case where former client Biomet Inc. had sued for legal malpractice. Biomet, a manufacturer of orthopedic devices, alleged that the law...

Stop Writing When Time Is Called

Posted on March 19, 2009
The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department declined to admit an applicant for admission who had passed the February 2005 New York examination. The character and fitness problem related to a finding of misconduct in taking the...

Who Pays?

Posted on March 19, 2009
A case decided today by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court holds: It is well settled that an insured is entitled to recover reasonable attorney's fees and expenses incurred in successfully establishing the insurer's duty to defend under the terms of...

Lawyer-Juror's Article Leads To Reversal Of Judgment

Posted on March 19, 2009
The New Jersey Appellate Division reversed an $876,000 plaintiff's verdict in a slip-and-fall case where the plaintiff had fallen while looking for pantyhose in aisle five of a supermarket owned by the defendant. The court did not conclude that, standing...

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Suing Complainant Results In Discipline

Posted on March 18, 2009
In a matter of first impression, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that an attorney could be subject to professional discipline for a violation of the immunity provisions of the rules of disciplinary enforcement. The provision provides immunity from civil suits...

For Better Or Worse, For Richer Or Poorer

Posted on March 18, 2009
The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility censured an attorney who had accepted an accident case on referral from an accident resolution company. The referral violated Tennessee RPC 7.6 (b) (referrals from imtermediary organizations). Further, the attorney's written retainer agreement contained...

Disbarment For Post-Suspension Practice

Posted on March 18, 2009
The Maryland Court of Appeals held that disbarment was the appropriate sanction where an attorney had engaged in unauthorized practice after suspension: "...the Court, as the promulgator and guardian of the proper standards for the practice of law, must act...

No Conflict

Posted on March 18, 2009
The Illinois Review Board affirmed a finding that an attorney had not engaged in a concurrent conflict of interest in representing two defendants in an eviction action. He had only communicated with one of the clients, who it turned out...

New IOLTA Rules Proposed For D.C.

Posted on March 17, 2009
The District of Columbia Bar's disciplinary rules revision committee has proposed amendment to Rule 1.15 with the stated goal of increasing revenue generated by IOLTA funds. A summary of the proposed changes: Change the existing ?opt out? IOLTA program into...

Return To The Fold Proposed

Posted on March 17, 2009
A Louisiana hearing committee has recommended a one year suspension retroactive to a suspension imposed in 1997 and two years probation when a final order is issued, in a case involving multiple acts of misconduct including concersion, "stiffing" health care...

No Class

Posted on March 17, 2009
The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has recommended the disbarment of an attorney for misconduct in representing clients in a proposed class action lawsuit after class certification had been denied. The board found that the attorney had: ...violated duties to his...

Competent To Stand Trial

Posted on March 17, 2009
In an opinion issued today, the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of a defendant who had claimed denial of his right to self-representation. the defendant was found competent to stand trial but denied his request to represent himself because...

Recovery And Readmission

Posted on March 17, 2009
An Illinois hearing board has recommended that a disbarred attorney be reinstated. The attorney had become addicted to crack cocaine and been disbarred in Tennessee for illegal drug use (he was never convicted of a drug offense), practicing law while...

"We Have Met Madoff and He is Ours"

Posted on March 17, 2009
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw I'm speaking at a University of Dayton Law School symposium entitled "Fallout from the Bailout" on Friday, March 20, and have posted on SSRN the essay on which the talk is based: Disclosure and Judgment: "We...

ALI-ABA Offers Two Ethics CLEs March 24 and March 31, 2009

Posted on March 17, 2009
Posted by Alan Childress By telephone or audio webcast, ALI-ABA has two upcoming CLE programs of interest to those following legal ethics or needing ethics hours: Lawyer Ethics and Risk Management in an Economic Downturn, Tues., March 24, at 1:00...

The Second Time Around

Posted on March 17, 2009
An attorney whose previous disciplinary case made him famous--James Himmel-- is the subject of fresh findings of misconduct by an Illinois hearing board. Unlike the groundbreaking case imposing discipline for failure to report the misconduct of his client's prior counsel,...

Save the Sarcasm

Posted on March 16, 2009
The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered disbarment of an attorney who had previously been disciplined in that state. The Bar's Executive Director had filed a series of amendments to the allegations after ihis initial charging document. The court rejected the procedural...

The High Road

Posted on March 16, 2009
A Virginia lawyer was reprimanded with terms in a case where he represented a divorcing wife. The husband's attorney filed a counterclaim alleging that the wife had "romantic encounters...with a person known to both parties. That person was the Respondent...

Third Time Gets Reported

Posted on March 16, 2009
A Louisiana lawyer was suspended for a year and a day for his third alcohol-related driving offense. He also engaged in misconduct in that he had failed to report the first two offenses. The discipline was imposed by consent. (Mike...

New Bar Discipline Appeal Rule For Massachusetts

Posted on March 16, 2009
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has issued an order modifying the appeal process from a single justice to the full court. The court's stated aim is to expedite such appeals while protecting the substantial rights of the lawyer. The new...

Dagny Taggart Committed Securities Fraud?

Posted on March 15, 2009
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw For reasons too irrelevant to state, I've been re-reading a canon of my youth, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I guess it took about forty years since I first read it, and teaching securities regulation, to realize...

Say Uncle

Posted on March 13, 2009
The South Carolina Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct has issued an opinion concluding that a judge may not preside over criminal cases when his uncle by marriage is the chief of police. The inquiry came from a municipal judge considering...

Since Machiavelli's Time

Posted on March 13, 2009
The Maryland Court of Appeals begins an opinion with a quote from Machiavelli. Noting that he had suffered the rack for his support as a public official for an administration that had been replaced, the court "considers what has changed...

Excessive Rhetoric Harmless Error

Posted on March 13, 2009
The Kansas Supreme Court found plain but harmless error in a prosecutor's closing argument in a felony murder trial. The prosecutor had argued: "They [sic] saying that Brandi shook the baby when? She shook the baby that night while she's...

Judicial Neglect

Posted on March 13, 2009
The Indiana Supreme Court considered judicial misconduct allegations in two consolidated cases involving findings that a judge and a commissioner of the same court had delayed excessively in ruling on post-conviction motions. The judge was suspended for 60 days and...

Incorrect Equals Unethical?

Posted on March 13, 2009
From the web page of the Virginia State Bar: On January 29, 2009, a three-judge panel of the Arlington County Circuit Court imposed a public reprimand on [an attorney] for violating the disciplinary rule that governs meritorious claims and contentions...

Pay Back

Posted on March 13, 2009
A decision denying in part a claim filed with the Lawyers' Fund for Client Security was affirmed by the New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department. The claimant must establish misappropriation in the course of an attorney-client relationship...

Efficiency On Display

Posted on March 12, 2009
The benefits of recent rule changes in the District of Columbia's disciplinary procedures are on display in two cases decided today. The first imposes a public censure as consent discipline based on admissions by the lawyer of lapses in two...

Adjusted Fire

Posted on March 12, 2009
A four month delay in responding to Bar Counsel repeated requests for information violates Maryland RPC 8.1(b). According to the headnote of the decision, the rule "does not require that a busy lawyer who is 'up to the elbows' in...

Winning The Case Creates An Ethics Issue

Posted on March 12, 2009
This has been a day for interesting legal profession cases from the Indiana Supreme Court. The court ordered a public reprimand of two law partners who had represented a client in a suit against two insurance carriers which had denied...

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