Third-party litigation funding is a growing and, some say, controversial industry. We’ve written before about whether such arrangements are permitted under state ethics rules (here), and we reported on the first effort to mandate disclosure of third-party funding via federal court rule (here), as well as the first state statute requiring
No DQ for firm in California homeless rights case, says district court
“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
Going once, twice … MD bar approves charitable auctions of legal services
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
Military prosecutor sent “bugged” e-mail to defense lawyers, says motion
We’ve written before about “web bugs” — tracking devices consisting of an object embedded in a web page or e-mail, that unobtrusively (usually invisibly) reveal whether and how a user has accessed the content. Three jurisdictions (Alaska, New York and, most recently, Illinois) have issued opinions pointing to the ethics
Employee’s theft leads to discipline for former OH judge
A former part-time Ohio judge and bankruptcy trustee whose bookkeeper was convicted of stealing funds from his trust account was publicly reprimanded last week for failing to reconcile his trust account monthly and failing to adequately supervise his staff. The court’s opinion spotlights the potential legal ethics problems that dishonest non-lawyer staff can create. Below
Ohio considers rule change to allow practice while lawyers wait to “waive in”
Although I love my home state of Ohio, I have to acknowledge that we are not often in the avant-garde when it comes to legal ethics. After all, Ohio was one of the last jurisdictions in the Union to adopt the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (2007). But last week, the Ohio Supreme Court put
Law firm’s “block billing” helped obscure overcharges, plaintiffs allege in TX federal suit
Five businesses filed suit earlier this month in a Texas federal district court against Morrison & Foerster, a 1,000+-lawyer mega-firm headquartered in San Francisco. The case is unremarkable in most ways: on the one hand, former clients who assert wrongdoing in how the law firm handled their matters (including billing improprieties) and a less–than-desirable outcome
“Fees a crowd?” D.C. bar issues opinion on ethics of crowdfunding
Has your client ever suggested paying for your services via donations from a Kickstarter campaign, or a GoFundMe page? The District of Columbia Bar recently considered such donation-based crowdfunding, and greenlighted the basic concept — but noted that the ethical implications vary depending on the lawyer’s level of involvement in the crowdfunding effort.
Other people’s
Client can be asked to indemnify lawyer against third-party claims, says ethics opinion
You probably know about the ethics rule that prohibits lawyers from trying to prospectively limit their liability to clients (or at least I hope you do!). You can find it in your state’s version of Model Rule 1.8(h).
In an interesting twist, the Utah Ethics Advisory Committee recently opined that it’s permissible to include
NY lawyer censured for conduct in fake “client” consult
Advising a “client” on how to move “grey money” into the U.S. has resulted in an agreed public censure in September for a New York attorney. The lawyer (along with a number of others) was caught on video by Global Witness, a British-based public advocacy group. But the sanction raises some questions regarding the