Professional Responsibility Blog

Illinois is the only state I know of that has a statute of repose that applies to legal malpractice actions. This means that, as in all stat...

Here is a recent case in a long line of bad cases that hold that a criminal defendant does not have a right to sue his or her attorney for l...

Adding to our running list of examples on how now to parctice law, here is the story of a Washington attorney who has been suspended from pr...

In my post about the West Memphis Three earlier today I mentioned the documentary "Paradise Lost,"  which I highly recommend.  It ...

In 1993 three eight-year-old boys were found dead in a muddy creek in West Memphis, a small town in eastern Arkansas.  The discovery of thei...

As you probably know from having studied the Supreme Court cases on advertising of legal services, the state can, without violating the atto...

The ABA Journal has started its annual search for the 100 best legal blogs.  You can nominate your favorite blogs by filling out a short for...

The class action filed in Missouri claiming that LegalZoom.com, which sells do-it-yourself wills, leases and other documents online, is ille...

A few weeks ago I reported ( here ) that the lawyers for Roger Clemens asked the court to prohibit prosecutors from putting the former baseb...

The Legal Profession blog is reporting today that the Virginia State bar agreed to accept a prosecutor's agreed disposition (ie, a plea ...

The Supreme Court has issued its schedule for the first oral arguments of the year and there are three cases related to the "law lawyer...

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied a habeas petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel because the d...

The Wall Street Journal law blog is reporting that at the end of this month, the Iowa Supreme Court will consider a proposal that would allo...

Here is a link to an intereting story in the Australian Professional Liability blog about a firm who sued a former client's wife to get ...

The California State Bar Association has submitted to the Supreme Court 67 proposed new Rules of Professional Conduct.  California is curren...

The title says it all.  Unfortunately, this is one I have reported on before - at least three times ( here , and  here , which includes link...

A few days ago, The Wall Street Journal law blog posted ( here ) that a case I reported about back in February of 2010 ( here  where you can...

In a recent decision called Grievance Administrator v. Trott (available here ), the State of Michigan Disciplinary Board disbarred an attorn...

The Legal Ethics Forum is reporting that the effort to restore the older, tougher version of Rule 11 I wrote about here  has fared well in t...

A few days ago, I posted ( here ) that the prosecution in the trial against former baseball pitcher Roger Clemens engaged in misconduct by u...

Here is a link to a decision from New Jersey imposing a light sanction on an attorney who represented the buyer and seller in the transacti...

About two years ago I reported that the Illinois Adminstrator has filed a disciplinary complaint against an attorney for, among other things...

About two weeks ago I posted a link to a report by the American Lawyer magazine that concluded that major firms contributed significantly fe...

Almost a year ago, I posted a story in my on-going "how not to practice law" series on a case in which the Washington Court of App...

Here is the most recent case in a long line of bad cases that hold that a criminal defendant does not have a right to sue his or her attorne...

In a recent case callled Toledo Bar Ass'n v. Pheils , the Ohio Supreme Court suspended a lawyer who arranged loans from his wife to a cl...

Here is a link to a radio program on lawyer advertising and marketing online.

A recent editorial in the National Law Journal asks "How should an ethical prosecutor deal with a high-publicity rape case?" (see ...

In a recent case, Connecticut Supreme Court considered "whether a prosecutor’s intrusion into communications between a defendant and hi...

The Legal Profession blog is reporting ( here ) that the California State Bar Court Review Department has suspended an attorney who allowed ...

The Wall Street Journal law blog is reporting on a study by the American Lawyer magazine in its just-released July pro-bono issue that concl...

The Supreme Court of Illinois has announced amendments to existing lawyer trust account guidelines. The new amendments to Rule 1.15 of the I...

The Legal Ethics Forum has a short summary of the eight lawyering cases decided by the US Supreme Court this past term here  (and it also in...

Constitutional law scholar and UC Irvine School of Law Dean, Erwin Chemerinsky has published an op-ed piece in which he argues that the U.S....

Here is a list of links to articles or comments on the Supreme Court's decision in Turner v Rogers (thanks to the SCOTUS blog for the li...

The ABA Journal.com is reporting today that three inmates have filed a class action suit against two cities in Washington state, contending...

Back in March the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case called Turner v. Rogers (formerly titled Turner v. Price) which asked the cou...

Here is an interesting little story about a Mississippi judge who has been reprimanded for ordering defendants to attend church as a conditi...

Here is a link (also here ) to a podcast with Suffolk Law Professor Christopher Dearborn in which he discusses his article on the right to ...

The Blog of the Legal Times is reporting today that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is getting ready to vote on legislation that would re...

Back in November of last year and then again in January of this year, I reported on a series of articles on the entities that lend money t...

The Legal Profession blog is reporting that Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel  has filed a complaint accusing a lawye...

Back in March I reported ( here ) on the possible disbarment of attorney Stanley Chesley, a very successful plaintiffs' lawyer who some ...

After the Supreme Court granted review in Connick v Thompson just after it was prevented from deciding Pottawattamie County, Iowa v. Harrin...

Back in December I reported a story ( here ) about a judge who sent a lawyer to jail for contempt when a lawyer refused to recite the pledge...

Here is a link (also here ) to an episode of the radio show Ringler Radio in which hosts Larry Cohen and Teddy Snyder talk to Seth J. Davis...

Last month I reported that Michigan adopted a new rule imposing a waiting period on certain types of communications sent to victims of accid...

For the second time in just a few weeks, I have been experiencing serious technical problems with the system that hosts my blogs (ie, "...

A few months ago, I thought that "the next big thing" in legal ethics was going to be a debate over whether to allow the use of sc...

An Illinois Assistant Attorney General is the subject of an interesting ethical charge after allegedly using a "ruse” to gain evidence ...

The Michigan Supreme Court has adopted a new version of Rule 7.3 that prohibits solicitation of accident victims within 30 days of the accid...

Here is yet another comment on the character of flat fees.  I have commented on this issue several times before, most recently here .  In ...

Here is a good reminder of the fact that a lawyer's conduct outside the practice of law can result in professional discipline.  In this ...

In an interesting bit of news, a lawyer whose conduct was ctiricized by the press and bloggers over the internet has sued 74 defendants incl...

Here is an interesting headline from today's news:  "Man Who Stabbed His Lawyer With a Pencil Stabs His New Lawyer With a Pencil....

I have often commented on inconsistencies regarding sanctions among jurisdictions and sometimes within jurisdictions.  Most recently, I ment...

Prof. Jonathan Turley is reporting today on a case out of Oklahoma where a murder conviction was overturned due to the comments at trial by ...

The Illinois Supreme Court just heard oral arguments in a case where the administrator of the state's disciplinary authority is appealin...

Here is an interesting article  from Forbes that describes some ways in which some lawfirms inflate their fees.  The article is called “Gra...

The Legal Profession blog is cmmenting today on a case in which the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed a drug possession and distributi...

In her blog My Shingle.com , attoreny Carolyn Elefant has posted a very good short comment that puts in context some of the questions about ...

The legal malpractice law review blog is reporting on two cases that illustrate two very different approaches to the issue of the applicatio...

I have often commented on inconsistencies regarding sanctions among jurisdictions and sometimes within jurisdictions.  Here are two separate...

Here is a good story for law students out there:  do not start offering legal advice and acting like a lawyer until you are one officially. ...

Three of my most recent posts have been about prosecutorial misconduct.  Usually, this topic relates to conduct of prosecutors as they inves...

A few days ago, I posted that I felt I had been wrong to speculate that the Supreme Court actually wanted to address the problem of prosecut...

Short deposition in a divorce case.... WARNING: vulgarity and foul language ahead. Go here for the transcript.

The Legal Profession blog is reporting on a recent decision by an Illinois Hearing Board recommendeding a suspension of six months of a 1994...

Long time readers of this blog might remember that I often referred to 2010 as the year of prosecutorial misconduct. There were so many scan...

According to information in the ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct, at its eighth meeting, held April 15-16 in Washington, ...

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 ...

Here is a story on the ABA Journal on a Massachusetts lawyer who was suspended for six months for placing advertisements on Craigslist to wr...

Here are the links to two related stories on funding for legal services. The Blog of the Legal Times is reporting that the bipartisan deal o...

The Chicago Tribune and Prof. Jonathan Turley are reporting that the Michigan Court of Appeals has found a defense attorney rendered ineffec...

Here is a link to a short article by John Thompson , the plaintiff in Connick v. Thompson, published today in the New York Times. The artic...

The Washington Post has published a short editorial criticizing Connick v. Thompson that starts like this: "A court decision may be l...