Ethics & Malpractice Issues

This past month, both Eric Mazzone, North Carolina’s law practice management expert and blogger at Law Practice Matters and the Illinois State Bar Association advise lawyers against filling in the “specialties” box on Linked-In without including some nerdy little caveat like “My state bar does not recognize specializations” or “I am not a certified specialist” BUT…

Last week, I posted here about Denver lawyer, Mark Brennan, harshly criticizing him for representing himself in a before a disciplinary board that is threatening to pull Brennan’s license for doing nothing more than zealously representing his client and achieving an outstanding result.  In the post, I agreed that the Board’s complaint was unjustified, but…

  IMPORTANT  – POST UPDATED HERE –The Other Side of the Story By all accounts, Denver lawyer Mark Brennan was treated badly.  Last year, he won a verdict for his client in federal court, only to have it snatched away by the judge, as a sanction for Brennan’s inappropriate and outrageous conduct during the trial.  Though I…

I’d love to be able to share the specifics about how to start and run a law firm for every jurisdiction in the country.  In part, that was the reason behind MyShingle’s The Bars, Reviewed which summarizes the benefits for solos and small firms offered by the 50 bars and the ABA and provides quick…

Boo-hoo for biglaw.  Unable to cope with the economic downturn, biglaw may now try to change the rules of the game. Over at Ideoblog, Professor Larry Ribstein faults ethics rules such as the prohibition on non-compete agreements and non-lawyer investment in law firms and conflicts of interest requirements.  For example, Ribstein says that because firms…

With the law firm of Dreier LLP on the brink of collapse as the result of founder and sole equity partner Marc Dreier’s multi-million dollar criminal fraud, the firm’s lawyers are learning first hand that if  a work situation sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.  Not only will many Dreier lawyers…

Peter Olson’s Solo in Chicago is another one of those great, unsung blogs that’s been running for years, seamlessly marrying tips on starting a practice with Olson’s own experiences.  A few days ago, Olson posted a link to an article by legal consutant Ellen Freedman from the ISBA journal (not publicly available) entitled Don’t be…

Lawyers sell advice and legal services.  So should lawyer marketing focus on, or educate clients about what lawyers provide – or try to identify ways to get in front of prospective clients for any reason.  That’s the question that law marketer Russ Lawson considers in this post which discusses a  99 cent/gallon gas promotion by…