Conflicts of interest aren’t always straightforward, especially with trust and estate planning matters. The Supreme Court of Utah recently determined that there was no former client conflict under Utah’s Rule 1.9 where lawyers were found to have only represented the former trustees and not the trust itself in litigation.

Trustees (“Trustees”) hired lawyers to represent

If you have not heard of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), now is the time to become familiar. Millions of companies will be affected by its reporting requirements. With the effective date being right around the corner, all lawyers need to be thinking about the CTA. The CTA, which Congress passed as a component of

Joint representations can present a host of ethical issues for lawyers to navigate including what to do with the clients’ file upon termination of the representation. The NYSBA’s Committee on Professional Ethics recently issued Opinion 1249 which explains that in a joint representation, the presumption is that the lawyer will share confidential information received from

Law firms that want to include mandatory arbitration provisions in their client engagement agreements must explain to the client the benefits and disadvantages of arbitrating a prospective dispute, the New Jersey state supreme court held late last year — and merely providing a link to the arbitration rules doesn’t satisfy the requirement, the court said. 

If you and your spouse are both lawyers, you know that you potentially face a few unique ethics issues — conflicts and confidentiality are the most obvious ones.  (We’ve considered some of the ins and outs here and here.)

But what if your nearest and dearest is also your law partner — or what

“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

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

locally grown red round grunge stamp on whiteIf you only agree to be “local counsel” in a matter, you can rest assured that your limited undertaking also limits the scope of your duties — right?   Wrong — as a recent disciplinary case and recent ethics opinion point out.

No “local counsel exception” to conduct rules

If your law school friend is serving