A divided Ohio Supreme Court last week suspended a lawyer for two years, with six months stayed, based on his sexual relationships with four clients.
Ohio’s Rule 1.8(j), like Model Rule 1.8(j),bars sex with clients unless a consensual sexual relationship pre-existed the client relationship. (The Ohio rule extends to soliciting or engaging
The ABA Ethics Committee last week issued an opinion aimed at giving guidance on a sometimes-puzzling question: what portions of the file does a lawyer have to provide to a client at the end of the matter — including a client who pulls the plug on the representation?
In Opinion 471, the Committee interpreted Model
Last year, we discussed the pitfalls of trying to cash in on the marijuana bandwagon.
We discussed both the seemingly inevitable grassroots movement toward legalization, but also the fact that the bars of several states had come to contradictory conclusions on attorneys’ ability to assist clients in grass-related business ventures, given that growing, possessing
Every year, the Association of Corporate Counsel takes the temperature of inside counsel practice by surveying general counsel and chief legal officers across a wide number of sectors. Unsurprisingly, the 2015 survey, with nearly 1,300 respondents, put ethics and compliance at the top of the list of chief legal officer concerns, together with data
Summer can sometimes bring a slight break in a lawyer’s hectic schedule — making it a good time to catch up on TV shows you might have missed while you were doing that deal or briefing that motion for summary judgment over the winter.
I’ve recently been enjoying (read binge-watching) Better Call Saul — it’s
Small may be beautiful, but when it comes to law firms, small can signal disqualification troubles that a bigger firm might sometimes be able to avoid, according to the reasoning of a recent opinion.
We’ve posted here before about screening non-lawyer personnel in order to avoid imputed disqualification when a secretary or paralegal arrives
One of your ethical duties with respect to an Internet scam is to not fall for it, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Committee on Professional Ethics has said in a new opinion.
Competent? Don’t fall for Nigerian check scam
The Committee considered the ethics rules that apply to
We posted here about the in-house firm counsel privilege, and the New York case that held late last year that the privilege didn’t apply where a malpractice plaintiff was seeking to discover all relevant communications of his former lawyers.
The opinion in Stock v. Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP is in the New York
Sometimes our lessons come in more bizarre ways than others. As reported by Law360 last week (subscription required), three Florida lawyers were charged by disciplinary authorities over a January 2013 incident involving the firm’s paralegal. The three lawyers were defending defamation claims against their client, who was a local radio talk show host known as
When you represent a business entity, do you also necessarily represent the shareholders? How about the owners? What if there are just two of them? Representing closely held entities can raise thorny ethics issues for business lawyers. Model Rule 1.13(a) says that when you represent an organization, your client is the entity. And when you