Professional Responsibility Blog

After I posted a link to a story on whether attorneys can accept payment for fees in Bitcoin last night, I vaguely remembered I had seen an ...

As I have discussed before, some cases or ethics opinions have found that the ethical duty to disclose exculpatory evidence is broader than ...

Here is the latest installment in our running list of dumb things lawyers do.  In today's tale, the lawyer claimed to have missed a dead...

Over at Ethical Grounds, Michael Kennedy discusses Nebraska’s Lawyers Advisory Committee's  Ethics Advisory Opinion 17-03, which appear...

Back in 2016, I reported ( here ) that Florida became the first state to mandate technology training for lawyers by adopting a rule that req...

The Maine Supreme Court is seeking comments on a proposal to revise Rule 1.10 to allow for screening as a solution to imputed conflicts of i...

Article here .

A little over a week ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a one page order formally rejecting a proposal to adopt ABA Model Rule 8.4(g)....

Faughnan on Ethics discusses seven lessons learned on confidentiality and privilege out of the "client number three" revelation i...

A few years ago, Washington state made news by approving a program to recognize licensed limited legal technicians (LLLTs) who would be all...

Trump keeps tweeting about the "special council" !  Please, somebody tell him the word is counsel.  Didn't someone say he was ...

Over at Faughnan on Ethics, Brian Faughnan has published a short but very accurate review of the basics regarding confidentiality and privil...

In a many jurisdictions, a convicted criminal defendant who wants to recover for malpractice against his or her former lawyer has to obtain ...

I have written often about prosecutorial misconduct and how rare it is to see accountability on the part of prosecutors who engage in it.  (...

The Indiana Supreme Court announced today that it will begin offering ethical guidance to Indiana lawyers and judges via the Supreme Court’s...

This is an important topic since the vast majority of lawyers will not end their careers in the same firm they start it.  Here is a recent s...

A recent ethics opinion issued in Alaska concludes that it is not necessarily unethical for attorneys to carbon-copy or blind-copy clients i...

The Legal Talk Network has posted a new podcast on ethical issues related to e-discovery.  You can listen to it by clicking on the play butt...

A recent Professional Conduct Advisory Opinion from the Illinois State Bar Association ( Opinion No. 18-01 , January 2018) joined at least t...

According to a story in the New York Times, published March 19, federal prosecutors are investigating finance companies that provide cash a...

Last month, I reported that Trump's budget proposal would eliminate all funding for the Legal Services Corp, the largest single funder ...

Back in December I wrote about ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility Ethics Opinion No. 479 ( here ) which discu...

Earlier this month the Florida Supreme Court amended the state’s lawyer referral rules to include for-profit “matching” sites and lawyer dir...

Yesterday I read a story about a man who was arrested for driving under the influence with a .316 alcohol level, when the legal limit is .0...

Lawyerist and The Legal Talk Network has posted a podcast on ethically problematic marketing strategies. You can listen to it by clicking on...

The Florida Supreme Court has adopted new rules regarding lawyer referral services concluding that the amendments "are necessary to ens...

A few weeks ago I was alerted that Office Depot had begun to advertise a new legal services plan.  You can find the announcement here .  I c...

As you probably know, more than half the states have adopted the ABA Model Rules' suggestion that lawyers must be knowledgeable about ...

Here is an interesting article on the use of digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana and Google Voice in the pr...

Here are a few new entries to the ongoing series "how not to practice law." An attorney in Colorado got a three year suspension ...

3M has agreed to pay $850 million to settle a long-standing lawsuit filed by Minnesota, over the company’s disposal of perfluorochemicals us...

Long time readers of this blog will remember the debate on whether non lawyers should be licensed to provide limited legal services and how ...

As you know, the ABA is considering a series of changes to some of its rules related to advertising.  As I have commented before, the chang...

Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach has published a short comment on the ABA's Formal Opinion 478 on the restrictions i...

At a time when the legal profession continues to debate how to best provide access to legal services for those who can't afford it, the ...

Last month I posted that one of the important stories to watch in 2018 was going to be an $11 million antitrust lawsuit against the Florida...

Over at The Law for Lawyers Today, Karen Rubin has posted a short but informative comment on the ABA proposed changes to the Model Rules on ...

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...