Comments on withdrawal of attorney for police officer accused of murder in South Carolina

As I am sure you know by now, a few days ago a police officer shot and killed an unarmed man who ran away from the officer after being stopped for a broken tail light.  The officer has since been arrested and charged with murder.  At first, his lawyer declared that he believed that the officer had followed proper procedure. But he quickly withdrew his representation after the now widely broadcast video of the incident was made public. Eric Turkewitz, of the New York Personal Injury blog and several participants in the Legal Ethics Forum have comments on the attorney's withdrawal.  The general consensus seems to be that the lawyer's comments in "explaining" why he withdrew (something he did not have to do at all) comes close to disclosing confidential information.

Better Call Saul

For those of you who enjoyed (or just watched) the TV series Better Call Saul, here are a few links.

The Legal Ethics of Better Call Saul.
In this blog New York lawyer and Legal Ethics Forum contributor Nicole Hyland has been posting excellent comments on the ethical issues raised in every episode of the series.

KafkaEsq and Above the Law offer some thoughts on the series.

Washington State Supreme Court approves rules to allow lawyers to share fees with non lawyer legal technicians

While some jurisdictions are debating issues related on how to practice law, one of the more interesting debates that will likely become a national debate soon relates to who can practice law.

Washington state became the leader in this discussion when it approved rules to allow (and to regulate) the provision of limited legal services by state certified legal technicians (known as Limited License Legal Technicians, or LLLTs) in 2012. 

Having, in essence, created a new legal profession, the Washington Supreme Court has now taken its initiative even further by announcing that lawyers can now share fees and even form partnertships with these new non-lawyer legal professionals.  This makes Washington the second jurisdiction, but the first state, to allow fee sharing and joint ownership of law firms.  The other jurisdiction that allows attorneys to share fees with non lawyers in limited cases is the District of Columbia.

You can take a look at the new Washington rules here.  For comments on the new rule allowing lawyers to share fees with non lawyers go to LawSites and Bloomberg law.

This is a major development for the future of legal services and it will surely not be the last.  I think more states will follow suit (several other states, including New York and California are working on similar proposals) and soon we will have a broader market for legal services that will include both lawyers and non lawyers.  For a comment on the future of the legal services profession you can read a good paper by Prof. Andrew Perlman (Suffolk) here. 

Massachusetts Adopts Changes to Rules of Professional Conduct

The Legal Ethics Forum is reporting that Massachusetts has adopted a number of changes to the state's Rules of Professional Conduct most of which are designed to align the rules more closely with the ABA Model Rules.  Go here for the story and a link to the rules' changes.

Review of the anti-contact rules and doctrine

When can you contact people who are or were represented by counsel? The New York Legal Ethics Reporter has a good review of the doctrine here.

Texas lawyers protest suspension of prominent death row inmates' lawyer

I just read a recent story about about the suspension of a prominent capital defense attorneys by Texas’ Court of Criminal Appeals for filing a late petition in a death penalty case.  The author of the article argues that

"the sanction was doubly bonkers . . . because other death penalty lawyers never seem to be sanctioned for sleeping, drinking, or otherwise rendering themselves incompetent at trial. In any event, Dow was barred from appearing before the CCA for 12 months. Which means that his death row clients—whom he represents pro bono, and who may not find other lawyers to do so—literally have their lives on the line because a motion may or may not have been filed a few hours late. Or, as one lawyer quipped after the piece was posted: “Apparently Texas finally found one lawyer to be incompetent: the one who is actually good at his job.”

In response to the sanction, some 300 lawyers have filed a petition in the Texas Supreme Court seeking a declaratory judgment or, in the alternative, a writ of mandamus, overturning Dow's suspension.

Again, quoting from the article I just read,

The gist of the petition has to do with the case Dow was handling on appeal. His supporters say that if the original trial counsel had done the things he was supposed to do at the original trial (like, say, put on mitigating evidence; explain to the jury that his client was mentally ill; call even a single witness at punishment phase), Dow would not have needed to step in at the last minute to try to stay the execution. In our topsy-turvy capital defense universe, Dow is being sanctioned for trying to (quickly and with an execution date looming) do what defense counsel should have done in the first place.

I really don't know anything about this case or its background, so will let you read the full story and make up your own mind.  You can find the story here.

This is not the only story about a state going after successful capital punishment defense lawyers.  The Legal Profession blog has a similar recent story from North Carolina here.

Lawyer suspended for being drunk at a CLE program

The Legal Profession blog is reporting that a Virginia lawyer has been been suspended for six months and ordered to enroll in a two-year treatment and monitoring program for being intoxicated and disruptive at a Continuing Legal Education program last year. You can read more details on the story here.
 
I have seen cases of discipline for not complying with CLE requirements but I don't remember another case involving conduct during a CLE program.
 
Prof. Jonathan Turley has a comment on the case here.

Can lawyers lie during negotiations?

Can a lawyer lie during negotiations? 

The Comment to Model Rule 4.1 (Truthfulness in statements to others) states that the duty not to make false statements of material facts refers only to "statements of fact" and that under "generally accepted conventions in negotiation, certain types of statements ordinarily are not taken as statements of material fact."  But what does that really mean?

To help us understand, Professor Ron Rotunda has published a short review of the issues here.

Supreme Court denies cert petition in Truvia v. Connick

Last month I wrote about the cert petition in Truvia v. Connick, the most recent in a series of cases from New Orleans on whether an exonerated criminal defendant who spent years in prison after a prosecutor violated the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence can recover for damages.  You can read my original post here.

I was hoping the Court would grant the petition and revise its view on the issue, but it was not to be.  I found out today that the Court denied the petition a week ago.  Here is a page where you can find links to the documents in the case.

Thanks to Prof. Joan (Shaun) Shaughnessy (Washington & Lee) for the update.

Another opinion on the duty to disclose client's death

Last month I posted a comment on a recent Illinois case on whether an attorney has a duty to disclose the death of his client when the attorney is negotiating a settlement in litigation.

About ten days ago, the Legal Profession blog reported on another opinion on the same subject.  In this one, an attorney who had failed to disclose his client's death prior to settling an employment claim was suspended for one year.  The case is called Matter of Rosner and it is available here.