Professional Responsibility Blog

 When I cover the duties owed to clients in class, I tell my students to remember the grades they do not want:  Cs, Ds and Fs.  This is a tr...

Back in April I reported ( here ) that the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) formally submitted a proposal to the AB...

A recent proposal has been presented to amend a number rules in Vermont.  Vermont's Bar Counsel, Mike Kennedy, goes over the proposed ch...

April 24, 2022 Because of the pandemic, many lawyers were forced to start practicing remotely and for some of them this meant practicing ...

 One of the most debated issues in the Professional Responsibility arena in the past year has been whether states can force lawyers to join ...

A few days ago, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility published Formal Opinion 501 in which it reminds us tha...

By now I am sure readers of this blog are familiar with Model Rule 8.4(g) and the debate on whether it would survive a Constitutional attack...

Above the Law is reporting on a case in Oklahoma in which the state is seeking the death penalty for a lawyer.  The lawyer is accused of thr...

 Michael Kennedy explains here .

Back in July of 2021 I reported that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the mandatory bar system used in Texas was uncons...

 A standing committee of the State Bar of Texas filed a complaint in the District Court of Dallas County, Texas against former president Don...

In a recent report, a working group of the New York State Bar Association concluded that the New York Bar should not and perhaps legally may...

As you probably know by now, the State Bar of California recently announced that it had initiated a State Bar Investigation into John Eastma...

Not too long ago, Lex Blog started posting links to a new Podcast called Legal Ethics Now & Next, and just a few days ago, the second ep...

 A few days ago I posted a story about a lawyer who got in trouble for driving naked.  Today the story is about a lawyer who apparently has...

Over the past year I have reported news about the important changes in Utah regarding the approach to the regulation of the practice of law,...

The Legal Profession blog is reporting ( here ) that the Butler (Ohio) County Bar Association has recommended an indefinite suspension of an...

I have not posted a new entry in the ongoing series on "how not to practice law," so here is a new installment. A federal appeals ...

One of the most important stories of the last couple of years has been the debate over instituting changes to the regulatory regimes among t...

In an interesting development, the Virgin Islands Supreme Court recently denied a petition of the jurisdiction's Bar Association to have...

The Legal Profession blog is reporting on a recent case in which the the Florida Supreme Court apparently imposed a public reprimand of an a...

 The Legal Profession blog has the story here .  You can read the amendments here .  The amendments cover Rules 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, and...

 I have posted a number of times on the issues that arise when lawyers reply to negative online reviews.  (Here are links to the more recent...

Back in August I reported that Ohio amended its ethics rules to make clear what is required of lawyers who are physically located but not l...

The ABA Standing Committees on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and Professional Regulation have developed a Discussion Draft of possi...

The Oregon State Bar recently announced it is considering a proposal to approve a program for what it will refer to as "Licensed Parale...

December 5, 2021 Back in September I reported that a judge had imposed sanctions on several lawyers for the Trump campaign for the frivolous...

 About three weeks ago I reported that the organization "Accountability New York" filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan ar...

Long time readers of this blog know that I have posted many stories about the implications of comment [8] to Model Rule 1.1 on Competence.  ...

November 28, 2021 The Legal Profession Blog recently published a summary of a decision in Florida suspending a lawyer for 91 days for textin...

An organization called the New Civil Liberties Alliance recently filed a complaint in Connecticut seeking to enjoin the implementation of th...

The podcast Reimagining Law dedicated a recent episode to discussing the difference between being a client advocate and overly aggressive, h...

Last May I wrote about a new organization in New York called "Accountability New York" created by lawyers and law professors to pu...

Litigation Radio has a posted a podcast on witness preparation (sponsored by the ABA section on litigation).  You can listen to the program ...

October 17, 2021  (Updates at the end) Back in 2018, I wrote about a couple of complaints filed in Florida that I argued could challenge the...

New Jersey’s Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law joined with the Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics to issue Joint Opinion ...

 The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility recently issued a new Formal Opinion (No. 500, October 6, 2021) on an ...

 The Louisiana Legal Ethics blogs recently posted a comment on Model Rule 8.4(g) and on whether Louisiana should adopt it.  It concludes: In...

LawSites has a short list of recent ethics opinions generated because of the pandemic and the fact that so many lawyers are practicing law r...

It has been a while since I added an entry to our running "how not to practice law" department, so here I am today with an easy on...

As I am sure you know, last year Utah and Arizona adopted significant changes to their approach to the regulation of the practice of law.  C...

The ABA's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Ethics recently issued a new Ethics Opinion on whether lawyers may inves...

 A recently exonerated man who spent 23 years in prison has filed a complaint against a longtime Mississippi district attorney alleging vari...

 I recently reported on the sanctions imposed on the lawyers for the Trump campaign in Michigan (more recently here ; but for all the covera...

I have been following the reports on sanctions imposed on lawyers for the Trump campaign recently (go here and scroll down for those storie...

The ABA Journal is reporting that the State Bar of Texas is facing a new lawsuit claiming that it has continued to require lawyers to join a...

Just a few days ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted proposed revisions to the lawyer advertising rules. You can read all about the amen...

 On August 30, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected a petition that proposed to require Arizona licensed attorneys, who are not otherwise exem...

 A few days ago I provided a link to an article in which Lucian Pera, who is running for President of the ABA, explains his vision for the A...

 The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the Ohio Supreme Court has adopted an amendment that will allow a lawyer admitted to practice i...

 As I reported a few days ago, a judge in Michigan issued an order imposing sanctions on nine lawyers for filing a frivolous lawsuit for an ...

 As I am sure you know, one of the (if not the ) hottest topics in Professional Responsibility today is the development of new approaches to...

Back in July and earlier this month I reported that a Michigan judge held a hearing on whether to impose sanctions on the lawyers who repres...

 As I am sure you know by now, last year Arizona and Utah became the first jurisdictions in the US to allow lawyers to partner with non-lawy...

My friend Lucian Pera, one of the most well known and respected members of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, is running for Pr...

Hinshaw has a report on the California Lawyers Association Ethics Committee Formal Opinion 2021-1, which identified the "Elements of Ef...

Back in March I commented on a pending case in Florida in which the state requested the Supreme Court to impose sanctions on an attorney for...

While we await the result of the debate over whether to impose sanctions on the lawyers involved in an election challenge case in Michigan b...

July 13, 2021 In case you don't remember, a number of attorneys for the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan challenging the resul...

Ethics authorities in New York and Georgia recently issued opinions on whether lawyers can advise clients on matters related to both recreat...

 As you know by now, Rudy Giuliani's law license was suspended in New York and Washington DC as a result of his involvement in the frivo...

One topic that has received a lot of attention this year is the question of how to reply to negative online reviews.   Earlier this year, th...

 As you probably remember, back in December, a federal district court declared unconstitutional Pennsylvania's version of ABA Model Rule...

 Do I really need to tell you this?  Really?    I guess I do because a Missouri medical malpractice attorney has been ordered to spend a wee...

 Five days after I reported that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the mandatory bar system used in Texas was unconstitut...

On June 28, the Special Committee to Improve the Delivery of Legal Services submitted its final report to the Florida Supreme Court, recomme...