In today’s soft legal services market, some aspiring members of the profession feel pressure to work for free, but the fairness of such arrangements in general has come under scrutiny. In a twist, the New York State Bar Association earlier this month said that law firms could bill clients for services provided by unpaid legal interns, as long as the amount is not excessive, and the internship program complies with applicable law.
Continue Reading Unpaid legal interns’ work can be billed to clients as fees or costs, NY state bar ass’n says
Can lawyers barter their services? Connecticut ethics opinion says “Yes.”
Bartering for goods and services seems old-fashioned, even primitive — after all, that’s why money was invented, right? But bartering might be viewed as a component of today’s “sharing economy,” which involves more-direct, Internet-facilitated interactions between consumers and providers.
A recent informal opinion of the Connecticut Bar Association Standing Committee on Professional Ethics
Billing follies — what not to do
This week’s not-to-be-missed article on lawyer folly is a jaw dropping round-up of bad billing conduct, as reported in the American Lawyer.
It’s well-known that every jurisdiction’s version of Model Rule 1.5 prohibits charging an unreasonable fee or an unreasonable amount for expenses. So what could lawyers have been thinking when they did things