Professional Responsibility Blog

On October 12, The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors voted to approve substantive revisions to Bar Rule 4-7.14 related to the use of “expert”...

Back in August I reported that the ABA had adopted a few amendments to the rules related to communication of legal services (aka advertisin...

Last week, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued a formal opinion in which it concludes that lawyers h...

The Legal Talk Network has posted a new podcast on the California Rules of Professional Conduct.  You can listen to it by clicking on the ...

Thousands of drug cases tied to a state-run Amherst drug lab will be dismissed, and the state attorney general's office will bear the co...

In September 2018, Utah launched a small claims court online dispute resolution (ODR) system which has been designed to provide “simple, qui...

You may have heard stories about divorce clients "interviewing" good divorce lawyers so that their spouses would not be able to hi...

As a reminder that lawyers can be sanctioned for conduct outside the practice of law, take a look at a recent case in which the Ohio Supreme...

As you probably know by now, Avvo Legal Services shut down earlier this year, but Avvo itself did not.  The controversial original directory...

Earlier today, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued a new Formal Opinion (Number 482) on “Ethical Obl...

I am sure that there are lots of stories of lawyers threatening to fight during depositions; and, unfortunately even more of lawyers using ...

About two weeks ago I reported that the Indiana Supreme Court had imposed sanctions on a prosecutor for failing to disclose exculpatory evid...

As you may recall, back in May the US Supreme Court issued its opinion in McCoy v Louisiana , an eagerly awaited case on whether an attorney...

Over at the Legal Ethics Forum, Prof. Milan Markovic (Texas A&M) has posted a short comment on whether Judge Kavanaugh i) had a duty to ...

Because statistics show that the vast majority of people don't have access to legal representation, for years there has been a debate ab...

Continuing our long-running list of obviously dumb things lawyers do, here is the latest: Faughnan on Ethics is reporting on a recent cas...

Long time readers of this blog know I have posted many comments and articles on the lack of accountability for prosecutorial miscondcut (mos...

Back in 2014 I wrote a short article about ethical issues related to cloud computing.  See here .  Since then, obviously, the practice of us...

Back in May I reported (and commented on the fact) that Tennessee had rejected Model Rule 8.4(g).  See here . Now comes news that the Ariz...

A few days ago I wrote about a new opinion by the Board on Professional Responsibility of the Tennessee Supreme Court stating what is the ge...

Ethical Grounds has a short comment on ethics issues related to "of counsel" lawyers here . UPDATE 8/17/18:  If you want more in...

Since 2015, there has been a lot of discussion on whether non lawyers should be allowed to provide some legal services.  Back then, Washingt...

As I reported yesterday, the ABA just approved amendments to the Model Rules on advertising and solicitation.  I think the amendments are v...

Last week, the ABA adopted some amendments to the Model Rules that regulate attorney advertising and solicitation.  You can read the amendme...

Earlier this month I reported that Avvo Legal Services was shutting down; but I also stated that I was sure ALS' demise would not be th...

Bernie Burk (Campbell) offers some thoughts on the question here .

The June edition of the ABA Journal has a short article on whether it is ethical for an attorney to "ghostwrite" a document for a ...

A few days ago I reported that the company that recently bought Avvo has decided to discontinue Avvo Legal Services ("ALS").  T...

The New York State Bar has filed a resolution with the ABA House of Delegates, to be heard at the Annual Meeting, calling for regulation of ...

Last year I posted comments on a case then before the Supreme Court which I thought was important on the issue of client autonomy and alloc...

The most recent column at Verdict discusses ABA Formal Opinion 478, issued in December 2017, which warns that judges may risk violating the ...

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

Back in March I reported that Office Depot was set to start offering a pre-paid legal services plan.  Yet, when I went to check their websi...

Whether participating in Avvo Legal Services violates rules of professional conduct was one of the most debated questions in legal ethics re...

Just over a week ago, The Harvard Law Review Blog published "Disentangling the Ethical and Constitutional Regulation of Criminal Discov...

Above the law has posted a very informative article on the ethical implications of the use of artificial intelligence in the practice of law...

Here is a video of a "webinar" on how artificial intelligence is affecting and will continue to affect the practice of law.  If yo...

Long time readers of this blog know that I have posted many comments on prosecutorial misconduct, including on the fact that there is little...

As you know, in 2012 the American Bar Association amended the comment to Model Rule 1.1 (Competence) to make clear that lawyers have a duty ...

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a panel on the debate over for-profit services that help “match” potential clients with lawyers who ...

About year ago, the Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics, the Committee on Attorney Advertising, and the Committee on the Unauthorized ...

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 argued h...

I recently wrote about the controversy over the company TIKD ( here ) which is fighting a complaint alleging it is engaged in the unauthoriz...

Wisconsin's Public Defender's Office assigns private attorneys around 40 percent of its cases and pays them the lowest rate in the n...

A few days ago, in a comment on a different topic, I wrote something along the lines that California had not adopted the Model Rules... We...

The Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility of the American Bar Association recently issued Formal Opinion 481, called ...

If you are reading this blog it must be because you are interested in Professional Responsibility issues; and if you are interested in that ...

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...