Is "dignity" a proper standard for judicial office campaigns?

The Legal Profession blog has a story here.  In short, the South Dakota Special Committee on Judicial Ethics Campaign Intervention has issued an opinion that concludes that a judicial candidate can advertise in a movie theater as long as it is done "with dignity," a reference that apparently would apply to both the ad and the movie itself.  I posted a comment to the story and got some replies.  Go here to check it out.

My comment is that I am always troubled by the use of "dignity" in any decision judging speech by attorneys. It seems to me the use of "dignity" as a standard goes against the principle that the First Amendment stands to protect speakers against the state imposing sanctions based on the fact that some might find the speech offensive.  Granted, that principle was significantly weakened by the US Supreme Court's decision in Florida Bar v. Went for it, but the other cases in the long line of attorney speech cases still stand, including Zauderer, where the court said that regulating the dignity of the illustration of the IUD was not a good enough state interest.

New York State Bar Association report on social media ethics guidelines

As you know, the Model Rules were amended recently to recognize that an element of competence is knowledge about "technology" which includes computer programs and the use of social media. In addition, some bar groups have also issued reports or opinions on social media.  For example, I recently reported that the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Professional Guidance Committee issued an opinion on the ethics of advising clients on the use of social media.

But "social media" includes so many different things and its use can have so many implications that more guidelines are needed.  Fortunately (at least for lawyers in New York), earlier this year, the New York State Bar Association issued a report called "Social Media Ethics Guidelines" (available here.)  The guidelines discuss topics ranging from attorney advertising and furnishing legal advice through social media to ethically communicating with clients and researching prospective and sitting jurors.  Needless to say, these and other guidelines will continue to evolve in order to keep pace with technological developments.

Kentucky Supreme Court finds that it is unethical to require a defendant to waive right to claim of ineffective assistance of counsel as part of plea bargaining

As you probably know, it is not uncommon for convicted criminal defendants to challenge their convictions alleging that their lawyers did not provide effective assistance of counsel, and that sometimes the ineffective assistance related to the attorneys' inadequate counseling on whether the defendant should agree to a plea offer.  However, apparently prosecutors in federal court often require defendants to give up that right in order to have a favorable plea bargain.  In other words, it has been reported that often the plea offer is conditioned on the defendant waiving the right to challenge the attorney's performance as ineffective as part of attempts to seek post conviction relief.

Yesterday, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a very important opinion concluding that the use of ineffective assistance of counsel waivers in plea bargain agreements "(1) creates a non- waivable conflict of interest between the defendant and his attorney, (2) operates effectively to limit the attorney's liability for malpractice, and (3) induces, by the prosecutor's insertion of the waiver into plea agreements, an ethical breach by defense counsel."

The opinion was the result of a request by the prosecutors of the office of the United States Attorneys for the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky to review the merits of an advisory ethics opinion by the Kentucky Bar Association (Ethics Opinion E-435), an ethics advisory which held that the use of ineffective-assistance-of-counsel (IAC) waivers in plea agreements violates Kentucky's Rules of Professional Conduct.  After a very well reasoned discussion of the opinion, the Court concluded that it agrees with the Bar Association and that it is unethical for prosecutors to include a waiver as a condition to a plea agreement and for defense lawyers to advise clients about it.

The case is called US v Kentucky Bar Association and the opinion is available here.  For comments go to The Legal Ethics Forum, Behavioral Legal Ethics, The Legal Profession Blog, and a ;ublic defender.

Thank you very much to Grace Giesel (Univ of Lousville) for sending me the news!

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit finds that NJ rule regarding advertising is unconstitutional

In a case called Dwyer v. Cappell, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has found that a certain rule adopted in New Jersey to ban attorneys from quoting judges (saying good things about the lawyers) in the lawyers' ads violates the First Amendment.  The opinion is available here.

In this case, a lawyer had posted on his website quotes from judicial opinions in which judges praised the lawyer's work. After the lawyer refused a request by a judge to remove a quote from his website, the state adopted a new rule that prohibits quotes from judges, but that allowed posting a full opinion.

As I understand it, the new rules was based on several arguments:  (1) that statements in an opinion discussing a lawyer’s work do not constitute an endorsement; (2) that the use of the quotes could make judges could appear biased in favor of certain attorneys and (3) that quotes taken from opinions could be taken out of context.  For this reason, and to avoid operating as a complete ban on speech, the rule allowed the use of the full opinion.

In sum, the three arguments are just expressions of the most common argument used by states that want to limit attorneys' speech: that the speech is "misleading."  And this is the most common argument because misleading speech is not protected speech.

Yet, the Court was not persuaded.  Because the use of the quotes is at worst "potentially misleading," the validity of the rule should be analyzed under the standard used for commercial speech as developed by the Supreme Court starting in Bates and Zauderer.  And using that analysis, the rule fails.  

On the other hand, the Court did not leave the state empty handed.  It suggested that because the information could be potentially misleading, the state could impose the use of a disclaimer to explain the origin of the quote and to state that the quote does not necessarily constitute an endorsement by a particular judge.

Movies with pivotal lessons for lawyers

As many of you know, I keep a list of recommended movies for lawyers and law students.  It does not includes all the law related movies out there; only ones I have seen and would recommend.   Now for those of you interested in movies, here is a link to an article in the ABA Journal.com listing twelve movie scenes that offer important lessons for lawyers.  You can click on each movie title for a short description of the relevant scene and the lesson the authors think it helps teach.

Legal Zoom?

As you probably know, there are a number of decisions out there addressing the issue of whether Legal Zoom engages in "unauthorized practice of law."  (For previous posts on this go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)  I think this is an important debate because it relates to broader questions of lack of access to legal representation and whether non lawyers should be allowed to provide some legal services.   Here is a recent short article in the ABA Journal.com on the subject and some comments in The Legal Ethics Forum (with links to more).

Philadelphia Bar Association Committee opinion on attorney's advice on client's use of social media

The Philadelphia Bar Association’s Professional Guidance Committee recently addressed the following questions: (1) Whether a lawyer may advise a client to change the privacy settings on a social medial page from public access to a private setting; (2) Whether a lawyer may instruct a client to remove a photo or other content that may be damaging to the client’s case; (3) Whether a lawyer responding to document requests must produce copies of photographs posted by the client, which the lawyer previously viewed, but did not print or download; and (4) Whether a lawyer responding to document requests must produce a copy of a photograph posted by someone other than the client to the client’s social media page, which the lawyer previously viewed, but did not print or download.

The Committee concluded that that an attorney may advise a client to change privacy settings and may also advise the client to remove content, as long as the content is preserved so that it may be produced during litigation. The Committee also concluded that it is not an ethical violation to advise the client to take action that renders the content more difficult to locate if the content is readily available to be produced in the event that the information is relevant and responsive to a discovery request.

You can read the opinion here.

For comments you can go to Legal Ethics in Motion and Professional Liability Matters.

Webimar on ethical issues related to cloud computing

Here is a webimar by the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center on ethical issues related to cloud computing.