Category Archives: Ethics

Take The 5th, Please: Judge suspended for jailing lawyer invoking 5th Amendment

Posted on May 23, 2013 by JWT

With all the clamor these days about government officials exercising their right to remain silent when asked potentially incriminating questions by Congress, it’s important to note how short and shallow the national attention span can be when it comes to … Continue reading →

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Borderline Blackmail: Lawyers making immigration threats for leverage

Posted on May 19, 2013 by JWT

Some lawyers will do anything to win, including blackmailing employees who are considering filing a claim against their employers.  (The lawyers represent the employers.)  Apparently the issue comes up frequently enough that California is considering a special statute just to … Continue reading →

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Got Rats?: Panicked parish signs lopsided fee agreement

Posted on May 18, 2013 by JWT

Remember the Pied Piper of Hamelin?  He made a deal to rid Hamelin of rats, but the village didn’t pay, so he used his magic pipe to kidnap all the town’s children.  Here’s a story about a Louisiana parish ravaged … Continue reading →

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Daddy Issues: Bar’s Freudian urges curbed

Posted on May 18, 2013 by JWT

The Arizona Bar is supposed to protect the citizens of Arizona from bad lawyers.  When lawyers are suspended for periods of time, the bar typically tacks on various preconditions the lawyer must meet to return.  A lawyer who steals money, … Continue reading →

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Florida Gone Bananas: Yes, we have no lawyers, we have no lawyers today

Posted on May 12, 2013 by JWT

Here’s an interesting discussion of how politics has changed the economics of practicing workers’ compensation law in Florida to deny workers justice by denying their lawyers the right to be paid a reasonable fee.  By outlawing reasonable legal fees for … Continue reading →

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MIA: Is your lawyer missing in action, with your money?

Posted on May 7, 2013 by JWT

Here are some examples of several basic mistakes lawyers make that can get them into ethics trouble.  Note that the common thread is that client money was entrusted to the lawyer, either from a settlement with an opponent or a … Continue reading →

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Mixed Message: Bar spanks lawyer for $6 million fee bump, side-stepping $14 million base

Posted on May 1, 2013 by JWT

Although there is an ethics rule prohibiting unreasonable fees (or some variation on that term) in all US jurisdictions, this provision is rarely enforced by bar authorities.  This minimal enforcement is partly due to the vagueness of the rule and … Continue reading →

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Suffer in Silence: Class counsel stifle class member objections

Posted on April 16, 2013 by JWT

It’s no secret that our system for using consumer class action litigation as a surrogate for actual government regulation and enforcement has created some bizarre unintended consequences. One byproduct is that the only aggressive, truly adversarial litigation going on in … Continue reading →

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Bragging Rights: Lawyers quoting uncollectable vanity rates

Posted on April 13, 2013 by JWT

As we have noted many times before, those suggested retail hourly rates that some lawyers and firms publish aren’t real.  The real, as collected, rates have been heavily discounted — often by half or more, typically by at least a … Continue reading →

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Inconvenient Truth: Firm’s internal e-mails expose excessive legal fees

Posted on April 13, 2013 by JWT

There’s been quite a bit of negative publicity for DLA Piper thanks to internal emails among timekeepers gossiping about their work and the fees they were billing a client.  The emails don’t really surprise people familiar with legal billing, they’re … Continue reading →

Posted in All CGL, Civilian's Guide to Lawyers, Client Tips, Devil's Advocate, Ethics, Firing a Lawyer, Hiring a lawyer, In-House Lawyer Notes, Lawyer Management, Legal Bill Reviews, Legal Commentary, Legal Fees, Legal Fees: Law & Management, Legal News Notes, Trial Practice Checklists 2d | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off