Professional Responsibility Blog

Could attorney Robert Costello have to face ethics questions for testimony on Michael Cohen?  Professor Steven Lubet (Northwestern) thinks s...

Last year, a Federal District Court judge found that New York’s unauthorized practice of law statute violated the First Amendment’s protecti...

As you probably know by now, a federal judge recently ruled that one of Donald Trump's former lawyers must testify about communications ...

Last week we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the decision in Gideon v. Wainwright , which recognized that defendants accused of serious c...

The Legal Profession Bog is reporting that Rudy Giuliani recently filed a post-hearing brief in the District of Columbia bar discipline case...

 The other day I saw a story with the title: " Trump lawyer's ethics issue: He initially was approached by Daniels ."  In it, ...

Most states have adopted the view that the duty of competence includes a duty to keep up with modern technology.  Also, most states have ado...

 Last week I reported that the "world's first robot lawyer" was getting sued...  sort of...  It would be funny if the robot la...

 There has been a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence recently and I am sure there will be many articles soon on different ways ...

 This week saw a lot of coverage and debate about the decision by the Colorado disciplinary authorities to agree to a stipulated public cens...

As reported in Courthouse News Service, "[t]he world’s first robot lawyer has been practicing law without a license — doing a pretty po...

There has been a lot of attention lately to issues related to Artificial Intelligence ("AI"), particularly to the use of ChatGPT t...

The Illinois Supreme Court recently announced amendments to Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct 1.5 and 1.15 to clarify the law related t...

Ipse Dixit has posted a podcast with Elise Bernlohr Maizel, Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering at NYU Law School, in which she discusse...

The Arizona Senate recently approved a bill that "prohibits the Supreme Court from requiring an attorney to be a member of any organiza...

The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has issued a new Formal Ethics Opinion (no. 504) on the issue of choice...

If you have been following the story of DoNotPay -- the company that claimed to offer a "bot" lawyer, but which after some bad pub...

February 27, 2023 Several Professional Responsibility lawyers and scholars recently published a proposal to renew the American system of law...

I recently reported that Donald Trump and his lawyers were fined to the tune of almost a million dollars in one of the many frivolous cases ...

 It is difficult to keep up with all the different legal actions that Trump is in the middle of these days.  A few days ago I reported on an...

The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is seeking to compel a lawyer for the former president to ...

I have been following the story of DoNotPay, a company that at one point offered a million dollars to anyone who’d let its chatbot argue a c...

 A few days ago I posted a story on a company called DoNotPay which at one point offered a million dollars to anyone who’d let its chatbot a...

There has been a lot of attention paid to artificial intelligence in the practice of law recently.  One of the main sources of debate has be...

 Most states now adhere to the notion that the duty of competence includes an element of competence over the use of technology.  But there a...

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the District of Columbia Disciplinary Counsel just filed a 46-page Proposed Findings of Fact an...

 A few days ago I reported that the California Bar has filed a disciplinary complaint against John Eastman, a main player in the plot to ove...

January 29, 2023 A few weeks ago, the head of a company called DoNotPay offered a million dollars to anyone who’d let his a chatbot argue a ...

 The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and ABA Standing Committee on Professional Regulation is seeking comme...

 Here is a link to an article and a video discussion on why John Eastman should be disciplined.

Last week, the State Bar of California filed 11 disciplinary charges against attorney John Eastman based on his efforts to help overturn the...

In November 2021, the Idaho State Bar Commissioners recommended an amendment to Idaho Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4 to include anti-discr...

Yesterday I reported that a federal court imposed almost a million dollars in sanctions on Donald Trump and his lawyers for a frivolous case...

It can't be a good thing for the petitioner when the opinion of the court starts by saying "This case should never have been brough...

 As I reported yesterday, California is moving quickly to approve a modified version of Model Rule 8.3.   Click here for the full text of th...

Up to now, California is the only state that has not adopted some version of Model Rule 8.3 which requires lawyers to report another lawyer...

If you are interested in the topic of jury nullification, Radio Lab has a recent 1 hour long podcast on the subject.  You can listen to it h...

January 9, 2023 If you are reading this blog, you probably know already that the US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on whether a communi...

Above the Law is reporting that last Wednesday New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron sent a note to lawyers for the Trump family and...

 A lawyer for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been suspended from practicing law in Connecticut for six months for improperly giving Jone...

 As reported in Louisiana Legal Ethics , last year, the Louisiana Legislature enacted La. Rev. Stat. 9:5605.2, which provides that "[i]...

 A bar discipline committee in Washington, D.C., has concluded that Rudy Giuliani violated at least one professional rule in his efforts to ...

December 10, 2022 The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that raises the issue of whether a communication involving both ...

In its annual Profile of the Legal Profession for 2020, the American Bar Association defined a legal desert as a county with fewer than one ...

 Here is a short article on ethical considerations for judicial law clerks.

In the most recent case, the winners are the lawyers for failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who sued to try to force the stat...

November 13, 2022 Back on September 25 I reported ( here ) that a federal judge had dismissed a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against Hill...

November 3. 2022 Let's assume that Lawyer Larry sends an e-mail message to Attorney Andrea about a case in which Larry is representing C...

 The Louisiana Supreme Court recently amended Louisiana Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15(d) to clarify a lawyer’s duty with respect to the ...

If you need a reminder of your ethical duties when dealing with a client with diminished capacity, a recent post in Lex Blog has you covered...

A few days ago, the Yale Law Journal online published a short essay on whether it is a good idea to allow nonlawyers to have ownership roles...

As you may remember, the District of Columbia filed disciplinary charges against both Rudy Giuliani and former Justice Department attorney J...

 In our latest entry in the "how not to practice law" series, we have a quick practice tip:  don't tell your clients to burn e...

The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver (IAALS) recently released a new report highlighti...

Long time readers of this blog know that one of the most debated issues in the past few years involves the question of whether the regulatio...

 The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has issued a new Formal Ethics Opinion (No. 502), on communications wi...

 Here is another installment on the "how not to practice law" series... In today's story , the lawyer lied to the client and t...

Mike Kennedy, Vermont's Bar Counsel,  reports  that about two weeks ago, the Vermont Supreme Court approved several amendments to the Ve...

 If you have been watching the news lately you know that former President Trump has been having a terrible week in terms of legal matters.  ...

 With Trump's legal troubles mounting, there has been a lot of attention on Trump's lawyers lately.  Here are some of the headlines:...

 New Mexico will no longer deny licenses to practice law solely because of an applicant’s citizenship or immigration status, including some ...

As you probably know, in an attempt to provide better access to legal services, a few jurisdictions have allowed paralegals and other people...

Do lawyers have a duty to inform clients about litigation finance?  You can find an argument in favor of answering the question in the affir...

Two different stories from California illustrate the type of conduct that could be subject to discipline under Model Rule 8.4(g) (or simila...

Last week, the Illinois Supreme Court adopted a new Code of Judicial Conduct which includes guidance on the use of social media and financia...