Travelling abroad for work? What should you do if a Customs and Border Patrol agent, claiming lawful authority, demands that you unlock your computer or thumb drive or cell phone — full of client confidential information — and hand it over to be searched as you cross the U.S. border?
“Inexperience” reduces discipline for OK lawyer who displayed insolence and incompetence
Being inexperienced can contribute to getting into disciplinary trouble, but it can also be a mitigating factor in a bar disciplinary case. That’s the message of a recent opinion of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which imposed a six month suspension from state practice as reciprocal discipline on a lawyer who had already been suspended from
What if? Ohio board issues succession-planning guide for lawyers
What if you suddenly became disabled and couldn’t handle your law practice? Or, if you were to die, who would deal with your pending matters? Who has the password for your computer? Who knows where you bank? The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct last week published an ethics guide titled “Succession Planning” that
Emergency lawyering: giving advice in extreme situations
What happens when your ethical duty of competence meets up with an emergency situation where you are called on to give legal advice — immediately? Does a Good Samaritan concept apply to “emergency legal services.”
Too good to be true: dissecting the workings of an internet scam
You know those e-mails out of the blue that start “We would like to engage you to handle our $1 million legal matter”? From our friends over at Lawyerist.com comes a description of what happened when Steven Chung, an L.A. tax attorney, actually took the bait and pursued one of those invitations.
Pokémon Go — another reminder about the duty of competence for lawyers
Since it debuted in the U.S. a couple weeks ago, Pokémon Go has become a nationwide phenomenon. If you’re like I was, you may need a primer in order to understand what the hoopla is about. The game was launched by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for smartphones. It features the longtime videogame franchise that involves capturing and “training” phantasmagorical creatures called Pokémon. And yes, there’s an ethics issue for you to think about.
Beware: malicious e-mail campaign is targeting lawyers with fake disciplinary, bar notifications
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.
“Don’t they have e-filing where you come from?” Tech-challenged lawyer dodges suspension
My spouse and I visited Chicago years ago, and confusedly started driving the wrong way down a one-way street. We were promptly pulled over by one of the Windy City’s finest. I gave him my best smile, and said, “Sorry, officer, we’re from out of town.” He grunted, “Don’t they have one-way streets where you come from?” But he didn’t give us a ticket. A recent disciplinary opinion out of Oklahoma, involving a tech-challenged bankruptcy lawyer, brings the story to mind.
Don’t bcc your client on e-mails to opposing counsel, NY state bar advises
What’s ethical may nonetheless not be a best practice — timely advice from the ethics committee of the New York State Bar Association, which weighed in recently with an ethics opinion on the practice of blind copying your client on e-mails you send to opposing counsel.
The inquiry to the NYSBA’s Committee on Professional Ethics
Dabbling in other practice areas can bring disciplinary, malpractice woes to lawyers
Did you make a New Year’s resolution to shift gears in your law practice? Maybe start practicing in a new area of the law that is unfamiliar to you? It’s always fine to add new skills, of course, and marketing yourself in new ways can be a good strategy for bringing in more revenue in