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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

Decision In New York Judicial Pay Case

Posted on February 23, 2010
The New York Court of Appeals has issued its decision in the dispute over judicial compensation. The court holds: The consitutional arguments raised in these judicial compensation appeals are premised upon, among other things, alleged violations of the New York...

Resignation Accepted

Posted on February 22, 2010
A disciplinary summary from the web page of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers: On August 12, 2009, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a notice of exclusion excluding the respondent...from practice before that Office. The notice was...

No Response Leads To Suspension

Posted on February 22, 2010
A Vermont attorney was suspended for 30 day with probation for failure to respond to a bar complaint. The attorney was admitted in 1963 and was subject of a client complaint that alleged neglect, failure to communicate and failure to...

Bernstein on Pervasive Teaching of Professional Responsibility (Torts Version)

Posted on February 22, 2010
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw Anita Bernstein (Brooklyn, left) is a guest blogger over at our sister Torts Prof Blog and has an interesting take on whether and how to mix professional responsibility into the torts class. (HT: Sheila Scheuerman)

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The Whole Tooth And Nothing But

Posted on February 22, 2010
The Illinois Administrator has filed a disciplinary complaint against a lawyer alleging misconduct in the course of prosecuting a dental malpractice case involving a tooth extraction allegedly gone wrong. There had been an investigation by the Department of Financial and...

Imputed Conflicts And Contract Attorneys

Posted on February 22, 2010
An ethics opinion issued this month by the Legal Ethics Committee of the District of Columbia Bar is summarized below: The imputation of a temporary contract lawyer?s individual conflicts to a hiring firm under D.C. Rule 1.10 depends on the...

Knocked Out

Posted on February 22, 2010
A professional boxer defended a suit filed by the corporate entity that promotes his fights, claiming that the entity was not entitled to a cut of his $150,000 earnings from his International Boxing Federation Super Middleweight title bout against Jeff...

Helping Lawyers v. Public Protection

Posted on February 20, 2010
The intersection between bar discipline and bar programs designed to assist attorneys who seek help for substance abuse issues is addressed in a recent report and recommendation of the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board. The disciplinary matter involves charges of illegal...

Stiff Sanction For Prosectorial Misconduct

Posted on February 20, 2010
The Review Department of the California State Bar Court imposed a five-year stayed suspension with a four year actual suspension for "unethical behavior in four criminal cases." The misconduct involved obtaining a dental examination of a minor accused of sex...

The Uncertainty Principle Metaphor

Posted on February 20, 2010
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw As I mentioned to an e-mail correspondent who found a typo in The Venn Diagram of Business Lawyering Judgments: Toward a Theory of Practical Disciplinarity, I am a serial reviser, so I was fiddling today with...

Former AUSA Answers Bar Complaint

Posted on February 19, 2010
We recently reported that the North Carolina State Bar had filed a complaint alleging that a former Assistant United States attorney had practiced while suspended. The attorney recently filed an answer to the complaint that admits the allegations and contends...

Astor Defendant Disbarred

Posted on February 19, 2010
The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department has disbarred the attorney-defendant in high-profile Brooke Astor affair as a result of his criminal conviction. The court states: On October 8, 2009, following a jury trial in Supreme Court,...

Raising The Stakes

Posted on February 19, 2010
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered a suspension of a year and a day after issuing a November 18,2009 order to show cause why a suspension of that length should not be imposed. The attorney had failed to respond to the...

Super Bowl Party Leads To Conviction Of Lawyer

Posted on February 18, 2010
In a decision issued today, the Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed most of the counts charging an attorney with a number of sex offenses. The court described the facts: In 2004, the victim was an eighteen year old woman and a...

No Reinstatement Without Repayment

Posted on February 18, 2010
The Florida Supreme Court disapproved a referee's report as well as the parties' stipulation and denied the reinstatement petition of an attorney. Justice Pariente dissented, concluding that the failure to pay costs and restitution in the suspension matter was "[t]he...

The "Eisenberg Effect"

Posted on February 18, 2010
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has revoked the license of an attorney who had previously disciplined four times. The attorney had represented a husband in criminal charges arising from allegations of domestic violence brought by a wife. the husband was acquitted...

Void On Public Policy Grounds

Posted on February 18, 2010
The New Jersey Appellate Division has held that an agreement between an attorney and three defendants (two individuals and a corporation) that the attorney would not represent parties in litigation adverse to the defendants was void. The agreement was entered...

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Posted on February 18, 2010
From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio?s Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline has issued an advisory opinion concerning the inclusion of an area of practice or specialization in a law firm...

The Streets Of Bisbee

Posted on February 17, 2010
An Arizona Hearing Officer has recommended a censure and one year of probation in a disciplinary matter imvolving two unrelated counts. The attorney was serving as personal representative and trustee of a trust. He continued to serve in that capacity...

Lack Of Candor By Expert Draws Reprimand

Posted on February 17, 2010
We do not often see bar discipline imposed on an attorney for misconduct in connection with serving as an expert witness. However, it does happen as evidenced by this recent post on the web page of the Virginia State Bar:...

No Basis For Lesser Sanction

Posted on February 17, 2010
In a matter that had its origins in discipline imposed in New York in 1997, the Maryland Court of Appeals rejected a plea for more a "different and more lenient sanction" as reciprocal discipline and imposed an indefinite suspension with...

Miscellaneous Observations

Posted on February 17, 2010
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw 1. Even though Douglas Hofstadter did not address the issue in the famous G�del, Escher, Bach, I had always believed that the "how to throw away a garbage can" was the world's most practical example of...

A Box Of Chocolates

Posted on February 17, 2010
A Hearing Panel of the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board recently imposed a six month suspension of an attorney who was employed by a law firm for failing to tell her employer about an ongoing relationship with the spouse of a...

No Probation

Posted on February 16, 2010
In a recent opinion, the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board vacated a panel's order of probation and ordered an attorney suspended for one year; Following an emotionally charged courtroom confrontation with the opposing party in a civil case, respondent used his...

Justice Admonished

Posted on February 16, 2010
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct accepted an agreed statement and imposed an admonition of a justice of the Rensselaer Supreme Court for misconduct in his campaign for office. The sent approximately 7,000 letters to addresses provided to...

Not Forever

Posted on February 16, 2010
The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed findings of ethical misconduct in two consolidated matters but declined to impose the sanction of permanent disbarment that had been proposed by its Disciplinary Board. Although the misconduct involved an array of violations including, among...

Back-Up System

Posted on February 16, 2010
The Maine Board of Bar Overseers imposed a stipulated public reprimand in a matter where the attorney belatedly filed an answer in a credit card matter, resulting in a default judgment against the client. After he "expended a fair amount...

A Definite Suspension

Posted on February 16, 2010
The South Carolina Supreme Court imposed a definite suspension of one year in a matter involving improper real estate closings and a conflict of interest in representing a driver and passenger (who are cousins) in an automobile collision. As to...

Restructuring Ohio Bar Discipline

Posted on February 15, 2010
An announcement from the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: Ohio?s disciplinary system for lawyers and judges should be restructured to realize more consistency, uniformity and oversight, according to a report released today by a Supreme Court of Ohio...

Nix To Tix Fix II

Posted on February 12, 2010
The Louisiana Supreme Court accepted the recommendation of its Disciplinary Board and permanently disbarred a former assistant city attorney convicted of felony malfeasance in office. He had taken a $500 fee to represent a private client. The court concluded that...

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