As some of you already know, on Friday, May 29, 2020, I’m scheduled to present a 90-minute webinar on Power Pacts: Agreements to Fuel Law Firm or Career Growth and Unleash New Revenue Streams (click on the link for details or to register, click HERE. But for those of you who can’t attend, I’ve
By now, 36 states have adopted
some version of the ABA’s updated Model Rule 1.1. duty of tech competence which
requires lawyers to keep abreast of the benefits and risks associated with
relevant technology. But there’s an even better reason than ethics
compliance for lawyers to learn more about tech: to retain clients.
Last week, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted certification to hear an appeal of the Appellate Division’s ruling in Balducci v. Cige, Docket No. A-3068-16T2 (August 30, 2018) which voided an attorney’s hourly fee agreement with a client for a discrimination action because the lawyer failed to advise the client that other firms could
UPDATE October 12, 2019 – It’s taken me a while to post this, but MSBA finally responded to my request for an ethics ruling several months back. Instead of admitting that the rules as they existed were understood to prohibit markups on fees, the Committee insisted that markups have been permissible all along. In any
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation — which applies to US law firms that represent EU citizens or companies or hold data about EU citizens — allows EU citizens the right to have their data erased in certain circumstances. But the GDPR’s “right to be forgotten” could potentially butt heads with legal ethics requirements, which
As the Small Business Administration recognizes, cash flow is the lifeblood of a business and critical to its growth. Yet ethics regulations requiring lawyers to deposit advance payments into trust accounts and subsequently release it in dribs and drabs as work is performed only serve to exacerbate cash flow issues for solos and smalls
Yesterday on Twitter, I encountered a stream of tweets about the ABA House of Delegates recent amendments to Model Rules 7.1 – 7.5, hailing them as a game-changing, significant update to the existing regulations. Unwilling to rely on tweets as a primary source, I hustled over to the peruse the changes which are set out
Today, my blogging buddy Bob Ambrogi posted about a soon-to-be-launching platform Text A Lawyer. Designed to mimic the convenience of Uber, Text-a-Lawyer would allow users to text legal questions via their phones for just $20 and have them answered by a lawyer within minutes. Text-a-Lawyer is a great idea for many reasons. First, because
Can lawyers use a competitor’s name as a keyword to market their own law practice? Although Google allows law firms’ to purchase competitors’ names as keywords, at least two states — North Carolina and South Carolina — forbid this practice, finding it inherently deceptive. By contrast, Florida and Texas —allow lawyers to use keywords to
Last week, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (IARDC) issued a report that recommends allowing attorneys to participate in for-profit referral and matching services, and seeks public comment on a proposed framework for regulating for-profit referral companies and participating attorneys. The IARDC’s approach has been hailed as a favorable development by some, and