December 2019

If you’re making a New Year’s resolution to improve your time-keeping and billing habits, you can draw inspiration from this cautionary tale, detailing how a Massachusetts lawyer, a partner at a large firm, has been suspended for six months for overbilling clients at her prior firm.

3,000+ billable hours?!

As widely reported, the partner’s

As widely reported in the news, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals last month harshly rebuked an Illinois lawyer for submitting a rambling 86-page appellate brief that the court said was “incoherent” and “gibberish.”  Quotes from the brief indeed made it appear deficient.  (One section, said the court, consisted solely of the heading “GAMESMANSHIP” and 

Last month, the New York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics issued Opinion 1177, reaffirming that the New York Rules of Professional Conduct “permit a lawyer to assist a client in conduct designed to comply with state medical marijuana law,” even though the client’s conduct is prohibited by federal narcotics laws.

Reaffirming an