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What can you say about ethics that would possibly fill 20 pages?
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Apr 15, 2017 18:24
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| # ? May 19, 2024 09:42 |
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The only thing I remember from ethics is to not sleep with my clients or steal their money. Also if I'm caught with a kilo of coke I'll be disbarred in Illinois but reinstated in Kentucky!
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Apr 15, 2017 18:28
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The hilarious part of legal ethics is that once you get into practice the "may report" versus "shall report" and arcane rules end up boiling down to: 1. Don't steal from the clients. 2. Don't get caught committing crimes of dishonesty / felonies. 3. Do the job they paid you to do. 4. Occasionally tell them about their case. And frankly from what I've seen in the disciplinary section of the monthly bar journal, unless you're a total goober violating #1 or 2 is the only way to quickly get your ticket punched.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:34
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See my post above re Ashton O'Dwyer.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:35
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Around here add: 5. Don't overdraw your IOLTA. Comes up in every loving ethics CLE.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:37
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Phil Moscowitz posted:What can you say about ethics that would possibly fill 20 pages? Well, nothing interesting, that's for sure.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:38
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Compusaurus posted:The only thing I remember from ethics is to not sleep with my clients or steal their money. Ours is more specific than hthat in Canada. You can sleep with your clients, but you have to drop the file. Also you can sleep with a clients wife, just so long as you're not exploiting information the client gave you about their poo poo relationship.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:47
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Newfie posted:Ours is more specific than hthat in Canada. You can sleep with your clients, but you have to drop the file. Also you can sleep with a clients wife, just so long as you're not exploiting information the client gave you about their poo poo relationship. please go into detail about when you're exploiting info vs not
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Apr 15, 2017 18:50
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GamingHyena posted:The hilarious part of legal ethics is that once you get into practice the "may report" versus "shall report" and arcane rules end up boiling down to: This + conflicts, though. Conflicts matter.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:52
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In California, you can gently caress clients. Also have sex with them. You're just not allowed to be paid with sex or coerce them.
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Apr 15, 2017 19:43
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Seriously, don't comingle your IOLTA. Regarding updating clients: I have cases so old they're literally older than me. Early 80s cause numbers. Those have mostly gone up and down to the Supreme Court a few times. Some have just been perma-abated. Im pretty sure no one at my faceless client recalls or knows of their existence.
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Apr 15, 2017 19:56
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In Texas we can sleep with our clients. So there is that.
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Apr 15, 2017 21:28
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Phil Moscowitz posted:What can you say about ethics that would possibly fill 20 pages? There was a roughly 20-page case study on ethics we had to submit along with the rest of the bar exam. This alone had a 40% fail rate, and the biggest contribution to the overall fail rate. Ethics in theory can be hard. Ethics in practice is... well... GamingHyena posted:The hilarious part of legal ethics is that once you get into practice the "may report" versus "shall report" and arcane rules end up boiling down to: Kalman posted:This + conflicts, though. Conflicts matter. Pretty much this, but especially that last one. I didn't actually make it more than 9 months before my first disciplinary case. A previous client had reported me because I'd won their case, and made sure all their legal costs were covered so they didn't pay a dime. I didn't do that last part without checking with them first (I was entirely within my rights and also obligated to do this). The disciplinary case was judged unfounded after less than a month and dismissed, kind of obvious really. Which goes to show that the clients with diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia aren't the most stable and rational of clients. Edit: I did not sleep with this client.
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Apr 15, 2017 21:34
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Nice piece of fish posted:There was a roughly 20-page case study on ethics we had to submit along with the rest of the bar exam. This alone had a 40% fail rate, and the biggest contribution to the overall fail rate. What was the complaint?
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Apr 15, 2017 22:13
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The Board here has to act on every complaint even if it's facially crazytown.
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Apr 15, 2017 23:47
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The lawyers who get dinged for things like acting without informing clients or for conflicts nowadays have got to be craven, idiotic, lazy, or a combination of the three. I can at least see how it happened before everything was on computers, but now there is truly no excuse for doing that stuff accidentally. Hell, e-mail should have solved most of the problems with communicating with your client, not just in how easy it made staying in touch, but also the documentation of it.
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Apr 16, 2017 00:40
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Pook Good Mook posted:The lawyers who get dinged for things like acting without informing clients or for conflicts nowadays have got to be craven, idiotic, lazy, or a combination of the three. Plenty of perfectly good lawyers get dinged for this bc some clients expect more communication than is necessary. Especially in retrospect if you lost their case.
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Apr 16, 2017 00:59
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Look Sir Droids posted:Plenty of perfectly good lawyers get dinged for this bc some clients expect more communication than is necessary. Especially in retrospect if you lost their case. I should have clarified, I meant legitimately dinged.
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Apr 16, 2017 01:12
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I slept with my client
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Apr 16, 2017 04:21
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For all you State attorneys, getting hosed by the Government doesn't count.
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Apr 16, 2017 04:24
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mastershakeman posted:please go into detail about when you're exploiting info vs not The example we were given was a lawyer at our professor's firm heard from his client how he was likely going to get divorced. So that lawyer then slept with the clients wife knowing this information. If you just sleep with the clients wife without that knowledge, supposedly not grounds for sanctions with the law society.
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Apr 16, 2017 07:58
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:I slept with my client
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Apr 16, 2017 08:35
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Lote posted:What was the complaint? Nice piece of fish posted:made sure all their legal costs were covered so they didn't pay a dime. This. Literally. I assume (the complaint wasn't all that coherent) that they wanted the option of paying for it all themselves? It'd probably be an ethics violation for me to allow that, though. I don't think it's ever come up as an issue, so I don't know. Look Sir Droids posted:Plenty of perfectly good lawyers get dinged for this bc some clients expect more communication than is necessary. Especially in retrospect if you lost their case. Absolutely. And it is a profession full of people who will gladly use any excuse to hang you for the slightest fuckup or omission. I'm glad some collegiality still remains, but that is quickly evaporating in today's corporate law environment.
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Apr 16, 2017 10:55
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Seems more like lawyers underreport other lawyers. I love reading the bar journal discipline section and seeing all these lovely lawyers that I've run across over the years, finally getting disbarred.
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Apr 16, 2017 15:17
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Seems more like lawyers underreport other lawyers. I love reading the bar journal discipline section and seeing all these lovely lawyers that I've run across over the years, finally getting disbarred. This is certainly the case in the criminal bar. Just once it would be nice to read about a prosecutor who gets nailed on a violation of 3.6 (Trial Publicity).
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Apr 16, 2017 15:52
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:Seriously, don't comingle your IOLTA. The professor I'm a research assistant for has me keep tabs on D-board opinions and 75% of them are solo lawyers loving this up.
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Apr 16, 2017 18:45
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Seems more like lawyers underreport other lawyers. I love reading the bar journal discipline section and seeing all these lovely lawyers that I've run across over the years, finally getting disbarred. The only reason I read the bar journal.
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Apr 16, 2017 19:10
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Toona the Cat posted:The professor I'm a research assistant for has me keep tabs on D-board opinions and 75% of them are solo lawyers loving this up. My dad's position is that firm lawyers have a huge step up in the "don't get disciplined" race because even if they wanted to steal the money they couldn't. Well at least at firms large enough to have an accountant type person. Now that accountant type person can and does steal money all the time, but your bar card will be fine. edit: I have no position because I am a lazy government attorney. nm fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 19:57
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The most unethical thing you can do that will get you suspended immediately is not paying your yearly extortion to the state bar.
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Apr 17, 2017 00:33
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nm posted:My dad's position is that firm lawyers have a huge step up in the "don't get disciplined" race because even if they wanted to steal the money they couldn't. Well at least at firms large enough to have an accountant type person. Now that accountant type person can and does steal money all the time, but your bar card will be fine. my old firm had an accountant steal millions over years and they only found out when she quit and went to some sort of hardware store business which noticed her theft within months and the cops told the law firm to maybe look around
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Apr 17, 2017 00:41
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sullat posted:The most unethical thing you can do that will get you suspended immediately is not paying your yearly extortion to the state bar. Actually, CA bar gives you a 6 months grace period with a $100 penalty. Also, state agencies are really bad with paying on time, but really good at talking their way out of paying a penalty on 100 attorneys.
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Apr 17, 2017 01:03
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Seems more like lawyers underreport other lawyers. I love reading the bar journal discipline section and seeing all these lovely lawyers that I've run across over the years, finally getting disbarred. Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. The same collegiality that protects the innocent also protects the guilty. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Pook Good Mook posted:This is certainly the case in the criminal bar. Just once it would be nice to read about a prosecutor who gets nailed on a violation of 3.6 (Trial Publicity). What's the violation there, public presumption of innocence?
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Apr 17, 2017 09:08
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nm posted:Actually, CA bar gives you a 6 months grace period with a $100 penalty. Also, state agencies are really bad with paying on time, but really good at talking their way out of paying a penalty on 100 attorneys. Look at this guy whose agency actually pays his bar fees directly. (Ours makes us pay them and then reimburses us later and it is the STUPIDEST GODDAMNED THING.)
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Apr 17, 2017 15:36
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Look at this guy whose agency pays his bar dues at all. But hey, we also got our mileage reimbursement cut 20%
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Apr 17, 2017 15:46
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joat mon posted:Look at this guy whose agency pays his bar dues at all. Look at this guy whose agency pays mileage.
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Apr 17, 2017 15:47
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I mean, my agency pays mileage and pays my bar dues and flies me places. Im not complaining just mocking our poor public defender friend.
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Apr 17, 2017 15:48
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Nice piece of fish posted:Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. The same collegiality that protects the innocent also protects the guilty. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_3_6_trial_publicity.html quote:(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter. Rule 3.6: Trial Publicity Local Prosecutors violate section a) all the time, especially in small jurisdictions. I'm also partial to 3.8, "Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor." quote:The prosecutor in a criminal case shall: (a) refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause Pook Good Mook fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 15:52
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Speaking of ethics, the MPRE scores just posted and the site promptly crashed. Yay...
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Apr 17, 2017 16:12
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Pook Good Mook posted:http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_3_6_trial_publicity.html I'm pretty sure this is part of the reason the Duke Lacrosse rape prosecutor got disbarred. So it has happened before.
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Apr 17, 2017 16:24
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Look Sir Droids posted:I'm pretty sure this is part of the reason the Duke Lacrosse rape prosecutor got disbarred. So it has happened before. So you're saying Nancy Grace is...good?
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Apr 17, 2017 17:18
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