The Greatest American Lawyer has been on the greatest of blog-posting frenzies this past week, with a number of must-read posts. But the one I’ve selected to focus on is this, which asks Have you ever considered waiving fees even when you did nothing wrong? There, GAL describes his decision to forego several thousand dollars
Ethics & Malpractice Issues
Client Expenses – Not Whether They Pay, But How Much
Over at The Practice, Jonathan Stein ponders whether clients should be billed for smaller incidental costs like photocopying or faxing. Jon falls on the side of rolling these incidentals into overhead rather than reflecting them on a client bill.
I agree with Jon. But for me, the much trickier question when it comes to…
An Ethics Decision for the Dogs
David Giacalone of f/k/ahas this post about the recent Florida Supreme Court decision in the 1-800 PIT BULL case (we noted the matter earlier here).
The court ruled that a Florida law firm’s use of the phone number
1-800-PIT-BULL and a logo depicting a pit bull in a spiked collar
violates Florida ethics…
Watching out for Clients
Reader Frank Kautz forwarded this great article, Small Firm Life: Friendly Fire (Raymond Dowd New York Lawyer 11/4/05) which begins with this advice to lawyers: “Quit worrying about your adversary coming after you; it’s your client you need to worry about.” Sadly, that’s true. Though there are some pretty bad lawyers (as we’ve just posted…
Next Time You Miss A Deadline, Why Not Change the Law?
Apparently, for well-connected law firms in Connecticut, there’s a far more potent tool than pedestrian legal malpractice insurance for addressing legal malpractice claims: personal legislation. As this opinion piece describes, a Sylvia Kuehl retained a prominent Connecticut law firm to represent her interests in a wrongful death action after her husband was killed in a…
How Is this Pro Bono – Sounds Like Marketing To Me!
This Press Release (PR Newswire 8/4/05) proudly proclaims that “for the first time in the history of bioethics, a major global law firm, (that would be Milbank, Tweed) makes its legal resources available, pro bono publico, for the analysis of biotechnology and its impact on women.” The release goes on to describe that Milbank…
When a Client’s Right to Access Counsel Hangs by A Hook…Of A Bra
Donna Thompson-Schneider is a solo criminal defense attorney who hasn’t visited her incarcerated clients. Lest you think that this is another story about an irresponsible attorney giving her clients ground for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, read on. The reason that Donna hasn’t visited her clients is because the prison has a practice of …
More on Unbundling
In the past, we’ve posted some articles on unbundling of legal services because it offers revenue possibilities to solo and small firm lawyers whose clients may not have the resources to fully fund legal services. Here’s another article on unbundling, Law Firms Find Revenues in Unbundling, National Law Journal, July 6, 2005, that reports…
Rational Ethics?
OK, how is this for rational ethics? As an attorney in Maryland or presumably in any state, I can start an ancillary business (let’s call it AB) like investment management or a lobbying shop or an insurance business which will serve both my firm and other customers. And presumably, because I own AB, any time…
Why You Can’t Just Take Your Client’s Word for It
The Supreme Court just issued a ruling in Rompilla v. Beard (see this link at SCOTUS blog for a good summary and links to the opinions) a case that I blogged about several months ago here. In Rompilla, the Supreme Court reversed a death penalty ruling, finding that the Rompilla’s defense attorneys were ineffective because…