By Irean Z. Swan

A couple of weeks ago, on June 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of California unanimously approved the new Rules of Professional Conduct rule 8.3, or better known as the “snitch rule.” Before June 22, 2023, California was the only state that did not adopt the “snitch rule” in the ABA Model Rule 8.3, or a version of this rule.  The Court’s decision was based on one of two alternatives (they picked Alternative Two), which my colleague on the Legal Ethics Committee, Mallory H. Chase, discussed in this article. Read More

By David C. Carr

The Simpsons lawyer Lionel Hutz wisely observed that “the law books not only make the office look good, they are chock full of useful legal tidbits.”[1] Read More

By Mitchell L. Lathrop

Howard Horror (“Howard”)¹ was busily representing four very important clients in a lawsuit, Evers et al. v. Jones Company. The Evers case arose because Jones Company had the audacity to fire Howard’s clients for excessive talking while on the job and the unauthorized accessing of sensitive communications between the Jones Company CEO and its lead outside counsel, Josephine Smith. Howard’s clients had learned that Jones Company was in financial difficulty, but Howard was not worried because Jones Company had employment practices liability (EPL) insurance. Even his clients’ signing of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Jones Company wasn’t cause for concern. After all, the information they gave Howard was extremely valuable for use in the Evers case. Read More

By Valerie Silverman Massey

Imagine this scenario: Attorney is retained by Financier to represent Party. Attorney’s client is Party, but Attorney also has a financial relationship with Financier (who may be funding the representation and/or also funding any settlement or judgment). Read More

By Carole J. Buckner, Senior Counsel, Klinedinst PC Read More

By Irean Z. Swan

The idea of zealous advocacy is not a foreign concept to an attorney. In fact, the preamble to the  Model Rules provides that “[a]s advocate, a lawyer zealously asserts the client’s position under the rules of the adversary system.” But when does zealous advocacy exceed the bounds of the law and cross the line into actionable conduct such as extortion? The Second District Court of Appeal recently examined this question again in the case of Geragos v. Abelyan (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 1005. Read More

By Mallory H. Chase

Currently out for public comment are two alternative versions of a proposed new California Rule of Professional Conduct, rule 8.3, which would address a lawyer’s duty to report the misconduct of another lawyer to the State Bar. As it stands, California is the last hold-out United States jurisdiction without an adopted rule on the topic. Read More

By Michael L. Crowley

As most practitioners know by now, there was a major revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct in 2018 that govern us all. One controversial change was to Rule 4.2 (previously Rule 2-100) that was only the change of one word. The one-word change is highlighted in the title of the Rule. It went from “Communication With a Represented Party” in Rule 2-100 to “Communication with a Represented Person” in new Rule 4.2. The change replaced “Party” with “Person.” Read More