By Edward McIntyre

Many jurisdictions adopted a version of ABA Model Rule 1.14 to give guidance when lawyers must confront obligations to a client with diminished decision-making capacity. Our Rules Revision Commission submitted a proposed version of rule 1.14 to the Supreme Court that attempted to reconcile the Model Rule’s approach with unique California obligations, including our obligations of confidentiality.[1] The Court did not adopt proposed rule 1.14. The need for guidance, however, about ethical obligations to clients with diminished capacity remains. The State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (COPRAC) stepped forward with a recent formal opinion.[2] Read More

A Pending California State Bar Opinion Explains And Gives Guidance On Lawyer Ethical Duties

By Charles Berwanger

Lawyers are often put into the position of knowingly (or even unknowingly) receiving client direction to, for example, include in a contract an illegal provision. Too, lawyers are often directed to enforce such an illegal provision. Read More

By Jessica Park and Andrew Servais

The California State Bar recently seized the client files of Efferin Deans, a man with a 25-year history of impersonating attorneys and two prior convictions of identity theft.[1] On Oct. 27, 2021, a criminal complaint was filed in Los Angeles County naming Efferin Deans and twenty-two aliases that Deans utilized to impersonate a lawyer and appear on the record as a licensed attorney for family law and personal injury cases from January 2019 to September 2021 (See People v. Deans, Los Angeles County Superior Court,Case No: BA499952).  Read More

By David C. Carr

Lawyers owe many ethical duties to their clients. Most of these duties are bottomed on the fiduciary nature of the attorney-client relationship. But lawyers also owe ethical duties to the judicial system and other persons arising from their status as officers of the Court and agents of the justice system. The most exciting (sometimes too exciting) problems in legal ethics arise from conflicting duty situations. California’s Rule of Professional Conduct 1.2.1 provides the context for many conflicting duty scenarios. It has been a part of ethical controversies since it became part of the black letter law of legal ethics on its adoption by the Supreme Court in November 2018. Read More

By Edward McIntyre

A Central District of California grand jury issued subpoenas to a company and its lawyers related to a criminal investigation of the company’s owner, also a client of the lawyers. The subpoenas sought documents and communications related to that criminal investigation, the target of which was the company’s owner. The company and the lawyers produced some documents, but withheld others based on assertions of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine. Prosecutors pressed the issue. The district court (Hon. John Kronstadt) determined that the withheld documents were not protected by any privilege or were discoverable under the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. The company and the law firm disagreed with the court’s rulings and continued to withhold the disputed documents. The court then held the lawyers and the company in contempt because they failed to comply with grand jury subpoenas.  Read More