June 2016

A cyber-alert issued earlier this month by the non-profit Center for Internet Security warns of a dangerous wave of malicious e-mails that are specifically targeting lawyers. The fake e-mails are calculated to get your adrenaline pumping and to get you to open them and click on a link — because they’re personalized, they look urgent, and they’re disguised as coming from your own state’s disciplinary body or bar association.…

Under your jurisdiction’s version of Model Rule 3.4(d), you have an ethics duty to make reasonably diligent efforts to comply with legally proper discovery requests. Interpreting a wrinkle in Ohio’s version of the rule, the state supreme court held earlier this month that a violation requires “intentionally or habitually” flouting the requirement — and in an odd twist, the court held that a claimed Vitamin D deficiency did not excuse a Dayton lawyer’s failure to obey.…

What should you do when you are co-counsel on a case or in a deal, and you become aware that the other lawyer has made an error? A new ethics opinion from the New York State Bar Association says that if you reasonably believe that your co-counsel has committed a significant error or omission that may give rise to a malpractice claim, you must disclose the information to the client.…