Legal Ethics

  • February 11, 2025

    NJ Senator Seeks Answers On Departure Of Watchdog's Chief

    The New Jersey state senator who first called for the resignation of the State Commission of Investigation's chief executive following questions about her residency and a second full-time job wants to know how much the agency's commissioners knew before hiring her.

  • February 11, 2025

    NYC Mayor Says Bribery Case Is Over, Despite Silent Docket

    Amid an absence of activity on the court docket, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared Tuesday that the federal bribery case against him "will no longer continue," following reports of a U.S. Department of Justice memo directing prosecutors to drop the case.

  • February 11, 2025

    Remorse, Sobriety, Therapy Help Pa. Atty Avoid Disbarment

    A Fayette County, Pennsylvania, attorney who took accountability for ethics breaches including a money laundering conviction has escaped disbarment, with the state high court agreeing with its Disciplinary Board that mitigating factors should offset more stringent punishment.

  • February 10, 2025

    Injury Attys Admit 'Embarrassment' Of AI-Hallucinated Cites

    Morgan & Morgan PA and the Goody Law Group expressed "great embarrassment" Monday when they told the Wyoming federal judge overseeing a personal injury lawsuit against Walmart over an allegedly defective hoverboard that the pretrial motions they filed did, indeed, contain case law hallucinated by artificial intelligence.

  • February 10, 2025

    Trump Ousts Office Of Government Ethics Director

    President Donald Trump has fired David Huitema, the director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, the independent agency announced on Monday, less than two months after Huitema started as the agency's head.

  • February 10, 2025

    Investigators Say Texas Atty Lied To Help Clients Hide Assets

    A pair of court-appointed independent investigators have recommended that an attorney in Fort Worth be stripped of his license to practice in the Northern District of Texas because he lied to shield his clients' assets from $9 million in judgments.

  • February 10, 2025

    GenapSys Can't Claw Back Some Docs From Paul Hastings

    A California judge ruled that GenapSys Inc. can claw back some documents it inadvertently released during discovery in a legal malpractice suit against Paul Hastings LLP, but that some documents discussed during depositions cannot be clawed back because attorneys for GenapSys did not lodge proper objections during the proceedings. 

  • February 10, 2025

    Atty Accused Of Impeding Model In Fla. NFL Player Injury Suit

    An OnlyFans model has urged a Florida state court to prevent an attorney for a Miami Dolphins wide receiver from attending a second deposition of the football player, saying the lawyer hasn't lawfully appeared in the case and is improperly interfering in the personal injury lawsuit.

  • February 10, 2025

    DOJ Brass Want Bribery Charges Against NYC Mayor Dropped

    The U.S. Department of Justice has moved to drop public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, an extraordinary development in the wake of a public courtship between the embattled mayor and President Donald Trump.

  • February 10, 2025

    Experts Sound Alarm After Musk, Vance Float Ignoring Judges

    Attorneys and constitutional experts say the warning lights "are blinking red" after Vice President JD Vance and Trump confidante Elon Musk took to social media to attack the independence of the judiciary over the weekend.

  • February 10, 2025

    Attys Shouldn't Be Sanctioned For Press Briefing, Parents Say

    The parents of a Black man police fatally shot in 2022 urged a Georgia federal judge not to sanction their Claiborne Firm PC attorneys for a holding a press conference that the city of Savannah says attempted to sway the jury that will hear the police officer's case.

  • February 10, 2025

    NJ Attys Agree To End Libel Suit Over Father's Money

    Prominent class action attorney Carl J. Mayer has settled a defamation lawsuit against his brother and two cousins that claimed the trio falsely accused Mayer of stealing money from his elderly father, leading to a drop-off in referrals from other attorneys.

  • February 10, 2025

    BCLP Received Improper OK To Challenge Ga. Fee Ruling

    A Georgia state appeals court said Monday that it improperly gave Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP the green light to appeal a trial court ruling ordering the firm to return more than $125,000 in connection to a dispute between an Atlanta attorney and an airport travel spa operator.

  • February 10, 2025

    Goldstein Rearrested After Feds Say He Hid Millions In Crypto

    U.S. Supreme Court lawyer and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein was arrested again Monday following his earlier release on criminal tax evasion charges, after prosecutors alleged that he secretly made millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency transactions in recent days and was a serious risk to flee.

  • February 10, 2025

    Ex-FTC Commissioner's Accusers Call Damages Bid 'Fiction'

    Women who accused former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright of sexual misconduct stemming from his role as a law professor have told a Virginia judge that his damages expert in his defamation lawsuit against them failed to do his homework and his testimony shouldn't be allowed at the upcoming trial in the case.

  • February 07, 2025

    Injury Attys In Hot Water Over Possible AI-Hallucinated Cites

    Morgan & Morgan PA and the Goody Law Group on Friday withdrew pretrial motions in a personal injury lawsuit against Walmart over an allegedly defective hoverboard after a Wyoming federal court ordered the firms to explain why the filings contained what appears to be case law hallucinated by generative artificial intelligence.

  • February 07, 2025

    2nd Circ. Orders In-House Counsel Docs In Grand Jury Case

    The Second Circuit on Friday ruled that an in-house attorney for a publicly traded company under federal investigation in New York must turn over communications as part of a grand jury investigation under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.

  • February 07, 2025

    NC Judge Knocked By Fed. Circ. For Rushing Patent Trial

    A Federal Circuit panel on Friday stripped a patent case over respiratory treatment devices away from a North Carolina federal judge, with the appeals court reversing a noninfringement verdict that came out of a jury trial he oversaw and finding that it was at least the second time the judge "did not intend to manage a fair trial."

  • February 07, 2025

    DC Prosecutor Axed Jan. 6 Case Against Client, Group Says

    A legal group filed a bar complaint in Missouri Thursday against President Donald Trump's top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., saying the attorney violated rules of professional conduct when, in his new government role, he moved to dismiss charges related to the U.S. Capitol attack against his own client.

  • February 07, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Pushes Back At Doctors Who Vouched For Newman

    The Federal Circuit judges considering Judge Pauline Newman's request to end her suspension said Friday that they had retained doctors who have expressed "significant concerns" that there are errors and oversights in reports from physicians who deemed the 97-year-old judge fit to serve.

  • February 07, 2025

    Fla. Atty Couple Can't Escape Verdict Over Abandoning House

    A Florida state appeals court has reinstated the original verdict against an attorney husband and wife team for breaching a lease agreement on a rental house and leaving it in disrepair, ruling that a reasonable jury could find that the landlord performed his expressly authorized duties to preserve the property.

  • February 07, 2025

    Conn. Trial Firm Partner Seeks Sanctions In Heated Split-Up

    Connecticut Trial Firm LLC former co-owner Andrew Garza has asked a Connecticut Superior Court judge to issue sanctions against his former 50-50 partner, Ryan McKeen, accusing McKeen of "misconduct presenting a threat to the administration of justice" in heated litigation over the firm's split.

  • February 07, 2025

    Pullman & Comley Escapes Ex-Tech CEO's Legal Ethics Claim

    A Connecticut state judge ruled that the former CEO of WorldQuant Predictive Technologies LLC cannot sue Connecticut law firm Pullman & Comley LLC over the loss of $6 million in WorldQuant stock, determining that he should have raised those concerns earlier in the termination process.

  • February 07, 2025

    NAFTA Case Useful In Bid To DQ Quinn Emanuel, Judge Says

    A Florida federal judge has ruled that a Mexican oil company can use information on dismissed NAFTA arbitration and other documents in a bid to disqualify former counsel Quinn Emanuel, saying the evidence is relevant to underlying litigation over alleged funds transfers.

  • February 07, 2025

    Fla. Atty Disbarred For Fund Mishandling, Cover-Up, Contempt

    A lawyer in Florida has been disbarred over uncontested allegations of misconduct, including not filing a lawsuit on behalf of a client, fabricating a settlement amount and paying the client out of her personal bank account using commingled funds from an unrelated settlement.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Riding My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Using the Peloton platform for cycling, running, rowing and more taught me that fostering a mind-body connection will not only benefit you physically and emotionally, but also inspire stamina, focus, discipline and empathy in your legal career, says Christopher Ward at Polsinelli.

  • Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents

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    Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.

  • What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks

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    Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.

  • For Now, Generative AI Is Risky For Class Action Counsel

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    Although a recent survey showed most in-house counsel think that their outside counsel should be using generative artificial intelligence "in some way" in class action work, the technology is more a target for class actions than it is a tool to be used in practice at present, says Matthew Allen at Carlton Fields.

  • When Your Client Insists On Testifying In A Criminal Case

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    Speculation that former President Donald Trump could take the stand in any of the four criminal cases he faces serves as a reminder for counsel to consider their ethical obligations when a client insists on testifying, including the attorney’s duty of candor to the court and the depth of their discussions with clients, says Marissa Kingman at Fox Rothschild.

  • Why Preemption Args Wouldn't Stall Trump Hush-Money Case

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    With former President Donald Trump's New York hush-money criminal trial weeks away, some speculate that he may soon move to stay the case on preemption grounds, but under the Anti-Injunction Act and well-settled case law, that motion would likely be quickly denied, says former New York Supreme Court Justice Ethan Greenberg, now at Anderson Kill.

  • Litigation Inspiration: A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment

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    As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.

  • Series

    Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    A lifetime of skiing has helped me develop important professional skills, and taught me that embracing challenges with a spirit of adventure can allow lawyers to push boundaries, expand their capabilities and ultimately excel in their careers, says Andrea Przybysz at Tucker Ellis.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC

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    The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • How Firms Can Ensure Associate Gender Parity Lasts

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    Among associates, women now outnumber men for the first time, but progress toward gender equality at the top of the legal profession remains glacially slow, and firms must implement time-tested solutions to ensure associates’ gender parity lasts throughout their careers, say Kelly Culhane and Nicole Joseph at Culhane Meadows.

  • 7 Common Myths About Lateral Partner Moves

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    As lateral recruiting remains a key factor for law firm growth, partners considering a lateral move should be aware of a few commonly held myths — some of which contain a kernel of truth, and some of which are flat out wrong, says Dave Maurer at Major Lindsey.

  • Series

    Cheering In The NFL Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Balancing my time between a BigLaw career and my role as an NFL cheerleader has taught me that pursuing your passions outside of work is not a distraction, but rather an opportunity to harness important skills that can positively affect how you approach work and view success in your career, says Rachel Schuster at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media

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    In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

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    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • Series

    Coaching High School Wrestling Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Coaching my son’s high school wrestling team has been great fun, but it’s also demonstrated how a legal career can benefit from certain experiences, such as embracing the unknown, studying the rules and engaging with new people, says Richard Davis at Maynard Nexsen.

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