The First Amendment does not protect a lawyer who disparages the integrity of a judicial officer without an “objectively reasonable factual basis,” the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals recently held in Lawyer Disciplinary Board v. Hall.
The lawyer was an officer in his mother’s beauty academy business; he defended the company against a
Although a corporate parent and its subsidiary may be unified in structure, that may not be enough to disqualify a law firm that is involved in suing the subsidiary while representing the parent.
That’s the message the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently sent via its decision in HLP Properties
Can you get into trouble by giving a “preliminary opinion” about what a client’s claim might be worth? Possibly. But in Burds v. Hipes, a Georgia lawyer recently dodged a bullet when the state court of appeals held that an initial opinion about the possible value of the client’s claim was not actionable under