William Freivogel, whose excellent website on conflicts is available here, sent me a copy of a recent case we can add to our on-going list of "how not to practice law" series. In this case, called In re: Moon Thai & Japanese, Inc the court reviewed several bankruptcy cases a law firm filed on behalf of clients and found, among other things, that the firm had agreed to represent more clients than it could handle, that the firm's attorneys showed a lack of understanding about conflicts of interest, that the firm used questionable practices in handling retainers, that the firm appeared to be using the services of an attorney who had been suspended by the court and that the attorneys appeared to have misrepresented facts during a hearing.
Based on these findings, the court required both partners in the firm and an associate to complete 60 hours of continuing legal education in bankruptcy law and prohibited them from representing new clients until they obtained permission from the court to do so.
To give you some perspective on the CLE assignment... My Professional Responsibility class is a 3 credit class which means that over a 14 week semester it meets 42 hours total. My Torts class is a 4 credit class, which meets a total of 56 hours a semester. Sixty hours of CLE in one topic should take these guys a long time to complete.
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