How not to practice law: lie to cover up your mistakes

I sometimes tell my students that my kids (ages 7 and 5) could teach some aspects of the course:  don't steal, don't take what's not your etc.  Here is another simple lesson I have already taught that my kids:  if you realize you made a mistake don't lie to try to cover it up, it will only make matters worse.  Instead, admit it and try to find a way to fix it.  Try to minimize the consequences if possible but ultimately accept them and learn your lesson from the experience.

Here is a new case that illustrates this.  The Legal Profession blog is reporting that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered a two-year suspension in a case where the attorney had committed negligent misappropriation.  In response, the attorney made false representations to Bar Counsel and submitted false documents to support his explanation.

Note that the charge here was based on negligence.  That is significantly different that cases where the attorney knowingly tries to steal money from clients.  The attorney made a mistake; an important mistake, clearly, and a mistake that would have consequences, but there is no question that lying about it made it worse.

DC ethics opinion on referral fees for sending clients to non-lawyers

The D.C. bar's ethics committee has issued a new opinion which concludes that District of Columbia lawyers may accept referral fees for sending clients to non-lawyer service providers provided that the client gives informed consent and other conditions are satisfied. The District of Columbia Bar Legal Ethics Comm., Op. 361, 11/11 is available here.

New summary of the ABA Commission 20/20 work

The ABA's Commission 20/20 continues to work and here is its most recent summary of the Commission's actions.

How not to (start the) practice (of) law: cheat on the bar exam

The title says it all.  If you want to be admitted to the practice of law, it is really not a good idea to try to cheat during the bar exam. ..just sayin'... 

The Legal Profession blog is reporting today on a case in which the State Board of Law Examiners found that the petitioner was trying to cheat during the bar exam.  The Appellate Division of New York's Supreme Court
 affirmed the decision nullifying the results of the exam.  Go here for a copy of the court's order.

More on the controversy over Stephen Glass' request for admission to the bar - UPDATED (Dec. 27)

A few days ago I wrote about the controversy over the request for admission to the bar by Stephen Glass, a former journalist who was exposed for having falsified many of the stories he wrote for important national magazines over the years - including some he wrote while attending law school.  See my original comment on the case here.    Reuters has a new story on the case here.

UPDATE 12-10-11: Stephen Diamond has posted a comment called "Now it’s Judge Honn’s turn to be the state-bar establishment laughing stock: The Stephen A. Glass embarrassment," here.

UPDATE #2:  12/27/11:  (by the Legal Ethics Forum):   An op-ed published by the New York Times (here) argues in favor of admission to the bar.  The Washington Post has more on the story here.  Here is a link to the 1998 Vanity Fair article Shattered Glass which offers a detailed account of the history behind this case.  The article was later turned into a film of the same name.

Top stories of the year

As usual, around this time of the year we start seeing "top ten lists" for everything.  Go here for the Top Legal Ethics Stories of the Year list as compiled by the Legal Ethics Forum.

How not to practice law: host a website with nudity and profanity and then go ahead and post statements that suggest you are a drug user

I am constantly amazed at how people post stuff on the internet forgetting that others have access to what they post...  I like to tell my students jokingly (although it is not entirely a joke) that "facebook makes you dumb."  Here is another example:  In a recent case the South Carolina Supreme Court disbarred an attorney who did not reply to a number of alleged ethics violations, among them a charge that he maintained a webpage with the name of his law firm on MySpace.com that contained profanity and nudity along statements that suggested he had been using drugs during the week prior to posting the comment.

Listen people:  if you post something on the internet, others will read it.  It can and will be used against you. 

The New Jersey approach to sanctions

As Mike Frisch of the Legal Profession Blog recently stated, "there was a time when New Jersey had the reputation for being tough on attorney misconduct. That time has obviously long since passed."  His comment was prompted by a couple of new cases that display what he called "the forgiving nature of attorney discipline in New Jersey."

In the first case, an attorney had been suspended for three months but failed to file the required affidavit demonstrating compliance with the suspension order. He then failed to participate in the ensuing bar proceedings. The Office of Attorney Ethics sought a three-month suspension but the Disciplinary Review Board concluded that no further suspension was appropriate.

In the second case, the attorney was censured for "engaging in the practice of issuing trust checks against uncollected funds" which resulted in negligent misappropriation. He had been reprimanded in 1998 for filing false unemployment insurance claims and again in 2009 for a conflict of interest and failure to withdraw from representation. As a result, while claiming that the attorney's "cavalier attitude toward the disciplinary system cannot be tolerated," the imposed sanction was merely a reprimand.

Permanent ban from the SEC as a sanction

Breaking from tradition, the Securities and Exchange Commission sought sanctions in a recent case for ethics violations that were not tethered to violations of securities law.  In fact, the Commission imposed a lifetime ban on a commercial litigator whom the agency accused of violating attorney ethics rules.  Today, the BLT is reporting that the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit unanimously upheld the commission's sanction.  Go here for more on the story.  Go here for the decision of the court.

Proper sanctions? You be the judge

Here is a story from the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board (via the Legal Profession blog).

An attorney was retained to pursue claims for injuries sustained by a passenger in a plane that collided with a truck on the runway. In the suit, he asserted that the client's injuries were solely caused by the accident. The client so testified at her deposition. The client also testified that she had had no contact with the attorney prior to the plane accident.

However, this was false.  The client had been in a car accident two months before and had retained the attorney to pursue the claim.

The attorney failed to correct her false deposition testimony, contending that he did not "contemporaneously realize" that the testimony was false.

I am sorry, what?  So, at the time of the deposition the attorney had forgotten that the client was his client in another on going case?  Or was it that the attorney did not realize the client lied when she said she had not contacted the attorney?  Since he must have known she had contacted him, I am not sure it is difficult to see the statement was incorrect.

What sanctions would you impose? The Board imposed a public censure.  The opinion is available here.