The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (the “Committee”) issued its most recent opinion, which has an interesting new take on Model Rule 1.16 and the hot potato rule.

Rule 1.16 addresses lawyer withdrawal.  Subsection (a) defines when lawyers must withdraw or terminate their representation of a client, and

Today, several jurisdictions (D.C, Utah and Arizona) permit lawyers to practice in organizations where non-lawyers have ownership interests.  For example, D.C.’s Rule 5.4(b) permits D.C. barred attorneys to “practice law in a partnership or other form of organization in which a financial interest is held or managerial authority is exercised by an individual nonlawyer who

The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (the “Committee”) recently issued its first opinion on generative AI and not a day too soon. While states such as Florida, California, West Virginia, and Kentucky, as well as the District of Columbia have issued generative AI guidance, most states have yet

Conflicts of interest aren’t always straightforward, especially with trust and estate planning matters. The Supreme Court of Utah recently determined that there was no former client conflict under Utah’s Rule 1.9 where lawyers were found to have only represented the former trustees and not the trust itself in litigation.

Trustees (“Trustees”) hired lawyers to represent

A common situation faced by law firms – and especially larger law firms – is the potential conflicts and disqualifications posed by Model Rule 1.10(a)’s imputation of one lawyer’s conflicts to all lawyers in the firm.  This can become a substantial issue when different lawyers get initial calls from different parties to an event or

Like it or not, artificial intelligence is not going away and it’s evolving—quickly.  While AI talk has been brewing for quite some time, many of us assumed AI’s direct effect on our business was still years off.  But over the last year the pace of development and use has accelerated exponentially and it is

If you have not heard of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), now is the time to become familiar. Millions of companies will be affected by its reporting requirements. With the effective date being right around the corner, all lawyers need to be thinking about the CTA. The CTA, which Congress passed as a component of