When you represent a business entity, do you also necessarily represent the shareholders? How about the owners? What if there are just two of them? Representing closely held entities can raise thorny ethics issues for business lawyers. Model Rule 1.13(a) says that when you represent an organization, your client is the entity. And when you
Unauthorized practice? H&R Block exits immigration form business under Bar pressure
H&R Block announced in January that it would offer immigration document preparation services in some of its Texas stores. The business model depended on customers going into the stores, where “trained immigration assistants” would help them use proprietary computer software to fill out the forms.
After barely getting off the ground
, though, the tax-help
No privilege for communications by risk manager who was also a lawyer
Corporate organization
charts increasingly include slots for departments with names like “risk management,” “claims handling,” and the like. When lawyers head or staff such departments, does the attorney-client privilege cover their communications with company management? Not necessarily, says a new opinion from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Casey v. Unitek Global Services, Inc.
Sex discrimination
Ethics class ordered for tired attorney who made improper closing argument
We’ve posted here before about interesting sanctions that courts have ordered for lawyer misconduct. Here’s another one, in a case very recently tried to a jury verdict in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
In Kuran David v. Signal Int’l, LLC, plaintiffs were Indian guest workers who alleged that they were falsely promised green cards
In-house firm counsel privilege — will the favorable trend continue?
Two trial courts — in New York and New Hampshire — recently weighed in on the in-house firm counsel privilege. The New Hampshire Superior Court, in Moore v. Grau, recognized the parameters of the privilege. In contrast, the New York County Commercial Division judge in Stock v. Shnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP ruled
One for the casebooks: lawyer settles products case without telling court client had died
In the law school legal ethics course I teach, we study a classic disciplinary case in which a lawyer concealed the fact of his client’s death – dodging interrogatories and an independent medical exam (!), and telling an arbitration panel the client was “unavailable” – all in aid of negotiating a more favorable settlement. My
If you’re thinking of giving money to a client — think again
No matter how much empathy you feel for a client with financial woes, giving a litigation client money generally violates your state’s version of Model Rule 1.8(e). The rule provides that the only financial assistance you may give a client in connection with pending or contemplated litigation is: (1) to advance litigation expenses and
Judge not DQ’d by appearance of former spouse’s former law partner
In the olden days, lawyers and judges were men, couples lived together only after a wedding, divorce was less common, and marriage equality was not on the radar. So there was little occasion to wonder about ethical conflicts of interest that might be raised by lawyers or judges being married to each other, cohabiting with
Privilege covers lawyer notes from GM ignition switch investigation, district court finds
Both in-house and outside counsel can learn valuable lessons from In re General Motors, a recently-issued federal opinion on the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine. While some recent decisions have chipped away at the protections for attorney notes and internal memos, this opinion reaffirms that documents a lawyer creates during a corporate investigation will
Blogs, texts, Facebook can raise marketing ethics issues for lawyers
What are the legal ethics rules for using social media to market your legal practice? Judging from what’s out there, some lawyers view the social media space as the Wild West, where almost anything goes; and some lawyers are too worried about the possible snares to use social media at all to publicize or share