Legal Ethics

Expert Analysis

• Ethics Tips For Attorneys Telecommuting Across State Lines

  

  Attorneys working remotely from jurisdictions in which they are not admitted should take precautionary steps to avoid engaging in unauthorized practice of law, say John Schmidt and Michael Seaman at Phillips Lytle.

• Inside DC Bar's New Guidance On Multiple Representation

  

  The D.C. Bar recently cleared the way for lawyers to represent both a party and a witness in the same case in guidance that could prove influential as multiple representation in employment cases becomes increasingly common, says Alan Kabat at Bernabei & Kabat.

• 6 Ways Legal Employers Can Help Pandemic-Weary Parents

  

  Parenting during the pandemic has introduced a series of competing personal and professional obligations for attorneys and professional staff, and even organizations that are supportive of their parent employees can take steps to do better, says Meredith Kahan at Saul Ewing.

• Remote Working Tips For Lawyer Trainees And Their Firms

  

  The prospect of joining a law firm during the pandemic can cause added pressure, but with a few good practices — and a little help from their firms and supervising attorneys — lawyer trainees can get ahead of the curve while working remotely, say William Morris and Ted Landray at King & Spalding.

• What Biden's Ethics Pledge Means For Gov't Revolving Door

  

  Attorneys at Nossaman look at how President Joe Biden’s ethics pledge goes beyond those of his predecessors by imposing post-employment shadow lobbying and golden parachute restrictions on his administration’s appointees — and how a House bill proposing expansion of federal ethics law could affect enforcement.

• Opinion

  Punishing Bar Exam Policies On Menstrual Products Must Go

  

  Law graduates across the states are sitting for the grueling two-day bar exam this week despite menstruation-related barriers, such as inadequate menstrual product and bathroom access, which could be eradicated with simple policy tweaks, say law professors Elizabeth Cooper, Margaret Johnson and Marcy Karin.

• It's Time For Law Firms To Start Loving And Leveraging Data

  

  The volume and diversity of data managed by law firms today — from client files to internal financial records — may seem daunting, but when properly organized, good data can help practitioners stay competitive by providing sharper insight into firm resources and cost of work, say Jaron Luttich and Barry Wiggins at Element Standard.

• Keys To Protecting Clients During Law Firm Dissolution

  

  Whether a law firm dissolution is amicable or adversarial, departing attorneys should take steps to maintain their legal and ethical responsibilities toward clients, and beware client confidentiality pitfalls when joining new firms, say John Schmidt and Colin Fitzgerald at Phillips Lytle.

• How Case Management Orders Can Support New Attorneys

  

  Courts are leading the way in ensuring oral argument opportunities for newer attorneys by incorporating innovative language in a variety of orders, and private parties can and should follow suit by incorporating similar language into case management orders, say Megan Jones and Halli Spraggins at Hausfeld.

• An In-House Counsel's Guide To Better Work Management

  

  Amid economic uncertainty and increasing pressure on corporate legal departments to do more with less, work management processes should be aimed at tracking legal teams' every contribution, including routine matters that can be reallocated to nonlegal staff, says Aaron Pierce at LexisNexis CounselLink.

• Avoiding Materially Adverse Conflicts After New ABA Opinion

  

  The American Bar Association's recent guidance on what constitutes materially adverse interests between clients makes clear that lawyers should not take comfort in a current representation just because a former client is not on the opposite side of the v., and those hoping to avoid disqualification should consider five steps, says Hilary Gerzhoy at Harris Wiltshire.

• Rebuttal

  US Legal System Can Benefit From Nonlawyer Ownership

  

  Contrary to claims made in a recent Law360 guest article, nonlawyer ownership has incrementally improved the England and Wales legal system — with more innovation and more opportunities for lawyers — and there is no reason why those outcomes cannot also be achieved in the U.S., say Crispin Passmore at Passmore Consulting and Zachariah DeMeola at the University of Denver.

• Advocating For Broad Brady Orders Under New Criminal Rule

  

  By following several advocacy suggestions, defense counsel can argue for making fulsome and protective orders for prosecutors to produce Brady exculpatory materials at the beginning of criminal cases under a new Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, say attorneys at Steptoe & Johnson.

• Building A Law Firm Knowledge Bank For Thought Leadership

  

  Marketing professionals often do not have firsthand knowledge of current legal trends and client issues, so law firms need to commit to an ongoing knowledge extraction process — a series of steps to draw out attorney insights that can help marketers create effective and frequent thought leadership content, says Michelle Calcote King at Reputation Ink.

• Let's Emerge From The Pandemic As Legal Innovators

  

  The pandemic forced a digital reckoning on the legal profession — which switched to remote workforces, paperless workflows and digital signatures seemingly overnight — and law firms and corporate legal departments can keep up the innovation momentum with three guiding principles, says Kevin Clem at HBR Consulting.