Microsoft’s plans to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion was the talk of the tech world late last month. The combination of these behemoths is going to give Microsoft access to all LinkedIn’s data. Microsoft’s CEO has given some examples of the potential synergies that will result, like “getting a feed of potential experts from LinkedIn whenever Office notices you’re working on a relevant task.” But legal ethics issues loom, involving our duty of confidentiality under Rule 1.6.
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.
Lack of vitamin-D didn’t mitigate intentional, habitual non-compliance with discovery requests
Under your jurisdiction’s version of Model Rule 3.4(d), you have an ethics duty to make reasonably diligent efforts to comply with legally proper discovery requests. Interpreting a wrinkle in Ohio’s version of the rule, the state supreme court held earlier this month that a violation requires “intentionally or habitually” flouting the requirement — and in an odd twist, the court held that a claimed Vitamin D deficiency did not excuse a Dayton lawyer’s failure to obey.
Lawyer must reveal co-counsel’s error to client if it could raise malpractice claim
What should you do when you are co-counsel on a case or in a deal, and you become aware that the other lawyer has made an error? A new ethics opinion from the New York State Bar Association says that if you reasonably believe that your co-counsel has committed a significant error or omission that may give rise to a malpractice claim, you must disclose the information to the client.
Snoring lawyer disciplined in Va. gets reciprocal discipline in D.C. — It’s the cover-up, stupid
As we learned in the Watergate era, “It’s not the crime — it’s the cover-up,” and that truism has an analog in the world of lawyer ethics, as a recent disciplinary case out of the District of Columbia illustrates.
Florida district court rules it lacks jurisdiction to determine unauthorized practice charge
In a puzzling ruling handed down on May 25, a Florida district court judge ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction to address whether a Massachusetts lawyer who appeared on behalf of his defendant client at a Florida mediation was engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.
Using ill-gotten evidence and threatening opposing counsel draws 6-month suspension
Some ethics violations happen because a lawyer carefully analyzes a debatable situation and draws a good-faith, but incorrect, conclusion. And then there are the lawyers who leave me wondering. Let’s say your divorce client hacks into his future-former-wife’s e-mail account and hands you her payroll information and the direct examination questions that her lawyer has e-mailed her in preparation for trial. Raise your hand if you think you can use that evidence.
Violating confidentiality order results in lawyer’s DQ and referral to state ethics board
Courts often analyze motions to disqualify by balancing the need to uphold professional standards against the rights of clients to choose their lawyers freely. The New Jersey court of appeals struck that balance earlier this month in upholding the disqualification of a lawyer who violated a confidentiality order, finding that the lawyer knowingly disobeyed a court order, among other violations.
Filing administrative appeal without being admitted results in dismissal
The client of a Colorado lawyer who filed an administrative appeal in North Dakota without being admitted there got a harsh result — the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled in Blume Construction v. State that the lawyer’s action was the unauthorized practice of law, and therefore that the client’s appeal was void.
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Lawyers on hot seat after using paralegal to friend opposing party
Two New Jersey lawyers cannot avoid disciplinary charges arising from their use of a paralegal to friend a represented opposing party on Facebook, the state supreme court ruled recently.