Professional Responsibility Blog

The Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has released a Working Draft of proposed amendments to the ABA Model Rules...

The ABA Journal is reporting that a federal appeals court ruled today that a minor has no right to a court-appointed lawyer in immigration p...

Back in October I wrote a comment on McCoy v. Louisiana , a case before the US Supreme Court in which a Louisiana death row inmate is argui...

If you think that the legal system failed to keep pace with technology, you may wonder why that is the case.  Robert Ambrogi, who writes and...

Earlier this month I heard that the court dismissed the case against rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and a militia commander from Mont...

Because two of the state’s appellate districts took opposing views on the issue, the Florida Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a ju...

Long time readers of this blog are familiar with the on-going debates on whether non lawyers should be allowed to provide some types of lega...

Breaking news:  Avvo has been acquired by Internet Brands which already owns legal sites Nolo, Martindale-Hubbell, Ngage and Total Attorney...

Ethical Grounds is reporting that the Vermont Supreme Court recently adopted a version of Model Rule 1.8(j) which regulates sexual relatio...

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the Florida Supreme Court has adopted some significant changes to its procedural and substantive...

The Law For Lawyers Today has a short post on a few of the top stories to watch out for in 2018 and a couple of them are things I have been...

In my most recent post , I wrote that the Tennessee Bar Association has asked the state's supreme court to adopt an amended version of A...

One of the top Professional Responsibility stories of 2016 was the ABA's decision to amend Model Rule 8.4 to add that under certain circ...

Two weeks ago, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued a short opinion on the meaning of the phrase ...

A California law firm recently filed a lawsuit in federal court against LegalZoom arguing that LegalZoom is engaging in unauthorized practic...

Back in 2010 I posted a comment criticizing the practice of appointing attorneys for juveniles in delinquency proceedings to serve simultan...

The Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) (of which I am a member) has for some time now suggested multiple changes to t...

A few years ago, there were a number of cases reported in which courts explicitly abandoned the practice of imposing discipline based on the...

Back in September I wrote about a case before the Illinois Supreme Court called People v Cole in which the Public Defender refused to repres...

The Lawyer Ethics Alerts Blog is reporting that Florida Bar’s Board of Governors has found that AVVO Advisor is a for-profit lawyer referral...

Florida is one of the more aggressive states when it comes to regulating advertising.  In this episode of The Florida Bar Podcast, hosts Chr...

A month ago, the Legal Profession blog reported on a recent case in South Carolina in which the court discussed some of the details that a...

The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has issued a new opinion addressing whether a judge can conduct online ...

The ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Responsibility is reporting today on a recent case in which the court wrote “We have repeate...

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment on McCoy v. Louisiana , a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in which a Louisiana death row inma...

If you watch any TV, you have seen commercials of firms announcing they are available to represent client suffering from any number of inju...

Unless you have been hiding in a cave for the last few weeks, you are now familiar with Roy Moore: the twice removed from the bench former j...

In an effort to provide better access to legal services, back in 2012 Washington became the first state to adopt rules to allow (and to reg...

We all learned in law school that the regulation of  the profession is not really limited to practice of the profession.  And we all know th...

You may have heard recent accounts of negotiations between lawyer Marc E. Kasowitz, a lawyer for the Trump family and the Manhattan District...

In Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Association , 486 U.S. 466 (1988), the Supreme Court held that a state can not ban a lawyer from sending targeted...

In response to the efforts of a task force convened by the state’s chief judge to address the causes of wrongful convictions in New York, be...

    Applying the principle that a federal court of appeals can not reverse a conviction unless the defendant shows that the lower state cour...

"Bitcoin and the Legal Ethics of Lawyers," Prof. Ron Rotunda's most recent column, is now available here .

The ACLU of Nevada has sued the state, alleging that indigent defense in rural counties is so inadequate—and so poorly overseen by state a...

You have probably read or heard about the story of the 17 year old detainee who was seeking to get an abortion while in custody.  After the ...

Readers of this blog know that I have written extensively on the issues related to Avvo Legal Services.  You can go here and scroll down to...

A few days ago I reported that the Louisiana Supreme Court recently held that the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence in Rule 3.8(d) is n...

Law Technology Today has posted a short video discussing a number of ethical issues related to the use of social media, including the dange...

As you probably know already, Louisiana has a long (and on might say troubling) history as it relates to the duty of disclosing exculpatory ...

Last summer, the Third District Florida court of appeals affirmed an order refusing to disqualify a judge who was Facebook friends with one...

Just as my students and I are about to start discussing ethical issues related to litigation, including the rules related to filing frivolou...

It has been a while since I posted a story to the running "How not to practice law" series, so here are two new ones. How not t...

As long time readers of this blog know, I have been following the developments related to Avvo Legal Services for a while.  You can read all...

As readers of this blog know, the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility and now more than half the states, consider part of the duty of...

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in McCoy v. Louisiana in which a Louisiana death row inmate is arguing ineffective assistance of...

The news that some of Trump's attorneys inadvertently disclosed some confidential information raised issues as to whether the conduct co...

About two weeks ago, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a very interesting case that started last year when a trial judge ap...

Last week I reported that the New York City Bar Association  issued an ethics opinion holding that lawyers must take reasonable precautions...

How we define "the practice of law" has been a difficult question for a long time.  At one point, the ABA created a task force to ...

Given a number of recent reports that people's phones are being "searched" by customs officials when entering the US or other ...

It has been a while since I have posted an entry into the " How not to practice law " series, a series of posts about incredibly s...