2017 Happy New Year typeYou may have some holiday leftovers lurking in your fridge (potato latkes, Xmas goose, black-eyed peas, New Year’s Eve caviar), and we too have some interesting ethics topics that we didn’t have room for during 2016 — so here’s a potpourri, touching on positional conflicts, coercive settlements and maybe how not to use your firm’s

Some ethics violations happen because a lawyer carefully analyzes a debatable situation and draws a good-faith, but incorrect, conclusion. And then there are the lawyers who leave me wondering. Let’s say your divorce client hacks into his future-former-wife’s e-mail account and hands you her payroll information and the direct examination questions that her lawyer has e-mailed her in preparation for trial. Raise your hand if you think you can use that evidence.
Continue Reading Using ill-gotten evidence and threatening opposing counsel draws 6-month suspension