Professional Responsibility Blog

Law.com is reporting ( here ) that the New Jersey Supreme Court has before it a case ( Guido v Morris ) which raises the issue of whether a ...

A few posts below this one you will find a note about companies that have set up "fake blogs" as means to create advertising on th...

Eric Turkewitz is reporting today that Detroit attorney Carl Collins has paid a $5,000 fine for his solicitation of victims in the wake of t...

"The Deep End," a new tv show about lawyers premiered Thursday night on ABC. The plot revolves around the lives of four first-year...

Last Thursday, I posted an announcement about (and the trailer of) the new documentary on William Kunstler currently playing at the Gene ...

Just about a year ago I discussed the case of US v Beltrán Moreno as a remarkable example of incomptence (see here ). This was the case of t...

A few years ago, attorney Eric Turkewitz, the host of the very good New York Personal Injury Blog, commented on the practice of using blogs ...

I don't want to be depressing with two consecutive posts on this subject but it just so happens that yesterday the Wall Street Journal L...

During the first week of class, I spent a little time talking about how it is easy to be unhappy with our work as lawyers if we don't en...

In class the other day we discussed Model Rule 8.4's broad reach on the issue of "dishonesty." I also told my students of a ce...

Just in time for my class on attorney advertising, Prof. Jonathan Turley has compiled a good selection of short commercials here. Take a l...

William Kunstler was one of the most important and influential civil rights lawyers of his generation. (If you are in my class at JMLS, chec...

Article here ; opinion here . Thanks to Legal Ethics Forum for the links.

Here is another addition to our running list of simple rules on how NOT to practice law: show up to court drunk. The Legal Profession Blog...

Here is the question: “How can you sleep at night when you know you are representing a criminal defendant who is guilty?" Here is a lin...

Is it ethical for a prosecutor to make a deal to reduce a sentence for one defendant conditioned on an agreement by the defendant's defe...

I have criticized at least once ( here ) an Illinois hearing board for imposing light sanctions for misconduct. Today I have to add to that ...

Tort reformers in the US often suggest that we should do away with the use of contingency fees and adopt the "loser pays" system t...

Simple Justice Blog has a good post today about "lawyers and social media" and other dangers on the internet.... It starts like t...

I have blogged before about the increasing attention that the concept of flat fees is getting, particularly at a time when clients are looki...

Here is yet another report of prosecutorial misconduct. Law.com reported a few days ago that a Santa Clara County, Calif., Superior Court ju...

On December 29, the Illinois Court of Appeals published an interesting opinion that briefly touched on the question of conflicts of interest...

Sometimes cases catch my eye for what they fail to say rather than for what they do say... Such is the case with a recent decision out of th...

Back in March I reported a hearing board filed an opinion recommending to suspend James Himmel, the protagonist of In Re Himmel , the famous...

I have posted recently on different problems that can arise related to lawyers and judges using social media such as facebook. See here , he...

Yesterday I reported ( here ) that the Federal Dept. of Justice recently issued some guidance memos for all federal prosecutors regarding th...

The New York Personal Injury Blog and the New York Injury Cases Blog are reporting on the following interesting case. Quoting from the NYP...

Law.com is reporting ( here ) on an interesting case where the court held that the client (a non-practicing attorney) sought to contractuall...

I have often complained about the inconsistency within and among jurisdictions when it comes to sanctions and about the ineffectiveness of i...

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the Oklahoma Supreme Court has affirmed a death penalty sentence in a case in which the defenda...

As I had reported previously ( here , here , here and here ), last November the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case called Pottawa...

I haven't added anything recently to our running list of examples on how not to practice law, so here is a recent case that caught my e...

Here is a link to an article by the Chief Justices of California and New Hampshire in which they endorse the trend towards unbundling and e...

Legal Ethics Forum is reporting that the Michigan Supreme Court has before it a case where the plaintiffs contend that the public defender s...

Back in October I reported that after a number of instances of prosecutorial misconduct or ineffectiveness in high profile cases, the Dept o...

I recently posted a couple of stories on whether it was unethical for judges to "socialize" with lawyers through facebook and othe...

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has a short comment on the dismissal of charges in the Blackwater case. Go here for the story.

For the past few weeks I was pretty busy preparing exams, grading exams and enjoying the holidays, so I was not very good at keeping the blo...

2009 may have been a record year for reported cases regarding prosecutorial misconduct. If you go to my section on Prosecutors ( here ) you...

A few days ago, President Obama announced his intention to nominate Sharon Browne to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporatio...

A few days ago I commented that this is the time of the year when you start to see "top ten lists"... Here is another one: New Y...

A recently released Washington bar's ethics committee concludes that lawyers in the state of Washington may accept referrals from foreig...

John Kopschinski, a former sales rep whose lawsuit led to the record breaking, eye rolling, jaw dropping $2.3 billion settlement, exposed ph...

A few days ago, I posted a story about the apparently prevalent practice among the NYPD to falsify records. (See two posts below this). Now ...

Tis that time of the year... As we get closer to the end of the year, we will see "top ten lists" pop up all over ... "top te...

Famous federal judge Jack Weinstein has lashed out at the New York Police Department, accusing the department of a proven record of “widespr...

Once again, there is a lot of talk about the death of the billable hour and the rise of alternative billing methods. Here is a link to a po...

Yesterday I posted that prosecutorial misconduct resulted in dismissal of charges in a high profile stock-option backdating case. Here is th...

A federal judge has dismissed fraud and conspiracy charges against Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry T. Nicholas and former Chief Financial Of...

Last September, the Legal Services Corp., which distributes funding nationwide for civil legal representation of the poor, released a report...

A criminal defendant who was wrongfully convicted of murder cannot sue prosecutors for their delay in disclosing the exculpatory results of ...

Here is a link to a review of the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Criminal Justice System. I have not seen the book, so I can...

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct has published an opinion ...

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting today that the Florida Supreme Court has announced the adoption of a new rule that limits the confid...

The PopTort is reporting that an amendment to the Senate health care bill that would have imposed national wage caps on fees for attorneys...

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced a new judicial conduct rule today that slightly eases restrictions on state court judges...

Last summer I posted a comment with the same heading as this one ( here ) (hence the "part 2"). In it, I explained my position tha...

The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has issued an opinion on ethical issues relating to judges' use of on line social networ...

There have been a lot of reports of prosecutorial misconduct this year. Go here so see my posts on this subject. Here is another recent e...

The Blog of Legal Times is reporting that the District of Columbia Bar is looking to join the more than 40 state bars around the country tha...

On Nov 30, the Supreme Court issued a powerful unsigned "per curiam" opinion agreeing that the ineffective assistance of counsel f...

The judge who ruled that lawyers can't be forced to comply with new federal rules meant to prevent identity theft released his written o...

On Friday, November 27, 2009, Disbar Torture Lawyers, www.disbartorturelawyers.com , a group of NGOs representing over a million members, fi...

Go here and here for recent posts on ineffective assistance of counsel (and links to some of the cases). Thanks to the Legal Ethics Forum ...

Go here for the latest update. If you don't know what the story is about, go here and follow the links back to the original story (and...

Loyal followers of this blog may have noticed fewer posts during the past couple of weeks. That's because I have been busy wrapping up t...

The Virginia State Bar has proposed an ethics opinion that concludes that lawyers should refrain from having sexual relationships with clien...

Here is a link to a cloumn from The Modesto Bee (November 29, 2009 edition) discussing how attorney’s fees may play a role in the national ...

A few days ago, I posted and commented on a video of a deputy stealing a document from a defense attorney in the middle of a court proceedin...

Delay in providing clients with a full copy of the applicable retainer agreement for their matter has cost a New Jersey law firm a six-figur...

Profs. Monroe Freedman and Abbe Smith, authors of Understanding Legal Ethics , a book I often recommend to my students, have written a revie...

In 1996, Congress attached certain rules to the budget of the Legal Services Corp., which funds lawyers for the poor in civil cases, in orde...

Commentators continue to announce the death of the billable hour. This short news item from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog has a bit of ev...

The appellate court of Illinois (second district) has just issued an opinion in which it reversed a conviction because the trial judge frail...

Back in September I commented on the news that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — the state’s supreme court on criminal matters — ruled t...

Here is an interesting fact scenario courtesy of the Legal Profession Blog : a client retained a lawyer to pursue an employment discriminati...

A few days ago, I posted a comment on the issue of whether humiliation is a proper punishment in our criminal justice system or whether it ...

A few days ago, I posted and commented on a video of a deputy stealing a document from a defense attorney in the middle of a court proceedin...

As previously reported, California recently enacted a pilot program that will provide lawyers for indigent clients in civil cases. See my po...