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Ethics & Malpractice Issues

E-shaming (or e-lucidating): Just What the Doctor Prescribed for Ethics (updated)

November 12, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at the Avvo Blog, general counsel Josh King shares the American Medical Association‘s just released Policy on Professionalism in the Use of Social Media — all 358 words of it.   Josh applauds the AMA Policy for both its brevity and: tacit acknowledgment that physicians are professionals – professionals who may need some guidance [...]

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ABA Ethics 20/20: Summary Recording and Powerpoint

November 5, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Thanks to all who participated in today’s ABA Ethics 20/20 call. We had a decent turn out, including a member of the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission. As promised (especially for those who called in late due to my time zone error), here’s the recording of the call and the Power Point presentation. The recording is [...]

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Can’t Stop This Train: Avvo Adds Doctor Reviews

November 1, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Today, Avvo, a  lawyer-rating service introduced a new rating service for doctors. Though Avvo isn’t first to market with doctor review sites — more than a year ago, there were already several other players in the field — Avvo’s entrance shows one thing: whether we professionals like it or not, consumer ratings services are here [...]

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The Retainer Letter As a Walk Down Memory Lane

October 22, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

I may not be a contract aficionado like Ken Adams, but I love a good retainer agreement.  Though  clean, crisp language and brevity makes me swoon as much as any other lawyer, my affinity for retainer agreements reaches far deeper than the surface:  quite simply, I’m a sucker for the stories behind the the whereas [...]

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MyShingle Briefing and Hearing on ABA Ethics 2020 Whitepapers

October 22, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

On October 14, 2010, the ABA Ethics 2020 Commission held a public hearing on two proposed whitepapers, one dealing with cloud computing, the other with lawyers’ use of internet tools, primarily social media, for marketing.  [update] I wish to emphasize that the Whitepapers themselves reflect a substantial amount of research and fairly identify or evaluate [...]

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Billing Methodologies Don’t Act Unethically. Lawyers Do.

October 5, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Look,  I’m no friend of the billable hour.   As others have emphasized far more eloquently, the billable hour measures time, not results and as such, breeds inefficiency.  Worst, for at least two decades, the billable hour fed biglaw’s associate leverage schemes which have since buckled under the weight of bloated fees and left countless young [...]

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Lawyers Want to Be Good, So Why Does the ABA Make It So Darn Hard?

September 29, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Tomorrow, the ABA will post its ethic Opinion 10-457 (August 5, 2010) on ethics issues related to lawyers use of websites.  OK, so the decision comes a good fifteen years after lawyers, myself included, first started using the web, but better late than never, I suppose.  In any event, the opinion was circulated this afternoon [...]

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Round Up of Resources on the Amorphous “Of Counsel” Relationship

September 27, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Nearly every lawyer has heard of the “of counsel” relationship, yet few understand what it is.  That’s not surprising, because of the many different variations of “of counsel” relationships, from the retired senior partner who stays on with the firm in an “of counsel” capacity to the part-time lawyer who doesn’t generate enough business to [...]

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ABA Commission on Ethics 2020 Wants Your Comments

September 22, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Update, 9/23/2010 :  Please review the comments from one of the Ethics 2020 reporters.  Seems that I was not sufficiently precise in describing the Commission’s activities to date, so let me clarify.  The Commission has, at this point, released issues papers, nothing more.  It hasn’t proposed rules (as I implied) or taken a position on [...]

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