Gift giving can be complicated, but especially so for lawyers if they are the intended recipient. A ruling handed down by the Vermont Supreme Court last month increased a lawyer’s suspension from three months to five months because the legal documents he drafted conveyed his client’s real and personal property to himself. While the lawyer
What not to do when you make a mistake
Maybe you were lucky and opposing counsel was able to delete the inadvertent email you sent her before she read what would have inevitably blown your whole case. But what about for those lawyers who were not so fortunate? Did you commit malpractice? Do you anticipate hearing from disciplinary counsel? Certain mistakes can be damaging
“Comprehensive” ethical screen fails to avoid disqualification from side-switching paralegal
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
Judge not DQ’d by appearance of former spouse’s former law partner
In the olden days, lawyers and judges were men, couples lived together only after a wedding, divorce was less common, and marriage equality was not on the radar. So there was little occasion to wonder about ethical conflicts of interest that might be raised by lawyers or judges being married to each other, cohabiting with
No disqualification, even where parent and subsidiary are unified, district court rules
Although a corporate parent and its subsidiary may be unified in structure, that may not be enough to disqualify a law firm that is involved in suing the subsidiary while representing the parent.
That’s the message the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently sent via its decision in HLP Properties
Screening paralegals may avoid conflict problem
Can a non-lawyer staff member who joins your firm bring with her a conflict of interest that may be imputed to your firm and disqualify you from representing your client? It can happen.
In this age of employment mobility, staff members may come to your firm after having worked for opposing counsel on cases (or