Categories : Legal Ethics
Ethical Considerations When Using Overdraft Protection With Client Trust Accounts
This article focuses on some of the ethical considerations a lawyer should consider when deciding to use overdraft protection.
Categories : Legal Ethics
Recent Decision Rejecting Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Shows Consequences of Attorneys’ Lack of Candor to Court and Public
Despite the unprecedented events occurring since, many of us still remember March 2019 when it was made public that “Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III delivered his Report of the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election to the then-Attorney General of the United States, William P. Barr.”
Categories : Legal Ethics
Navigating the Duty of Candor on Appeal
It is no secret that trial attorneys must navigate ethical minefields as they collect information from their clients, as they engage in discovery, and as they present evidence to judges and juries.
Categories : Legal Ethics
The Criticism Surrounding ABA Amended Model Rule 8.4
Sparking intense controversy, in 2016 the American Bar Association (“ABA”) amended Model Rule 8.4 to add paragraph (g), making it professional misconduct to “engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”
Categories : For New Attorneys Legal Ethics
Legal Ethics and the Start of a Career in Criminal Law
No matter which side you practice, a career in criminal justice is a call to public service and an important function of our great democracy. Despite uncertainties you may have about your future, I advise you to fearlessly go forth and take that first step.
Categories : Law Practice Management Legal Ethics
COVID-19: Here to Stay? Post-Pandemic Practice
If remote practice becomes a norm, management and supervision obligations may present difficult ethical issues.
Categories : Legal Ethics
Ethical Duties to Protect Electronically Stored Confidential Client Information From Disclosure to Third Parties
The American Bar Association reported in October 2019 that 26% of law firms had experienced security breaches.
Categories : Legal Ethics
Even If You Screw Up, All’s Not Lost
Some lawyers face State Bar discipline because of deliberate misconduct; others, because stupid misconduct put them there.
Categories : Legal Ethics
Ethics in a World Upside Down: Pandemic Changes Everything
"The pandemic forced many of us to do telemedicine for reasons other than emergency care. We also have patient privacy and confidentiality obligations. We have to be just as cautious."
Categories : Legal Ethics
ABA Issues Opinion on Conflicts Providing Guidance as to “Materially Adverse Interests” Regarding Duties to Former Clients
Rules 1.9(a) and 1.18(c) address conflicts involving representing a current client with interests that are 'materially adverse' to the interests of a former client or prospective client on the same or a substantially related matter.