Can we be Facebook friends?  That’s one question left open by the ABA earlier this month in Formal Opinion 488, on the subject of judges’ personal relationships with lawyers as grounds for disqualification.  While spotlighting judicial ethics duties in maintaining impartiality, the opinion fails to provide some needed guidance on social media relationships.

Model

The California court of appeals has denied a bid by an employment discrimination defendant to disqualify the plaintiff’s legal team.  The name partner in the law firm representing the plaintiff was formerly the employer’s chief operating officer — but the court rejected the assertion that his firm should be disqualified merely based on his knowledge

“DQ” at this time of year makes me think of drive-in ice-cream cones.  But I actually mean “DQ” as in “disqualification,” and instead of sugar cones, it points to an interesting case involving some take-home lessons about conflicts of interest.

Crisis of unhoused residents

California’s massive homelessness problem has been the subject of several federal

Looking for marketing ideas to help you or your firm stand out from the crowd?  If you’re tired of branding tee shirts and mugs with your logo, how about donating your legal services to be auctioned off by a charity?  As you might suspect, there are ethics issues — and Maryland’s state bar association recently

A Washington appellate court recently disqualified a county prosecutor’s entire office from participating in the re-trial of a murder case.  The chief prosecutor had previously represented the defendant while in private practice.  The case shines a light on government lawyers and imputed conflicts of interest.

Election win spells DQ

The county prosecuting attorney, Garth Dano,

You can’t interview potential expert witnesses and share confidential information with them solely to taint them with a conflict that would prevent the experts from working for the other side, the Texas State Bar Professional Ethics Committee recently said in Opinion No. 676.

“T’aint” ethical

Lots of litigation requires expert testimony in order to

Do you toil in the pressure cooker of a firm, but dream of going in-house? Many lawyers have that goal.  But the churn works in the other direction, too, with in-house lawyers migrating to firms or solo practice.  When they do, they can face conflict of interest issues leading to disqualification, as a former in-house

Representing a campus sexual assault victim-turned-activist and later using her confidential information in representing an alleged campus assailant with interests adverse to the former client is a “textbook” conflict of interest.  That’s the message the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sent in suspending a lawyer for a year in a consent-to-discipline case published this week.

Former -client

What are your ethics obligations when your client gives you documents that the client may not be entitled to have?  Model Rule 4.4(b), adopted in some form by most jurisdictions, provides some guidance.  Applying it, together with other principles, a New Jersey appeals court, in an unpublished ruling, recently disqualified a firm from