At the Intersection of Legal Ethics and GDPR

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,…

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How Legal Ethics Rules on Non-Fee Splitting Platforms Lead to Unintended Consequences and Ludicrous Results

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 text is…

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Beware of Buying A Competitor’s Name To Market Your Law Practice

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…

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Why State Bar Regulation of For-Fee Referral Services Is A Very, VERY Bad Idea

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 for sure,…

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