Who’s Guarding Us From The Guardians?: Lawyer-guardians paying themselves...
A common complaint we receive about lawyers and their fees involves fees charged by lawyers who are acting as guardians or otherwise involved in a guardianship, such as legal counsel to the nominal...
View ArticleOpaque Democracy: Keeping the transparency out of politics
If you want to engage in big dollar but sketchy or potentially embarrassing transactions, apparently there are lawyers who will help you. They may even use their firm accounts — including so-called...
View Article9 Dark 15: Lawyers expected at work bright and/or early, even if they worked...
There’s a fairly steady stream of lawyers complaining about life in the typical law firm. Complaints about arbitrary firm rules, billable hours, and eccentric superiors are all common. (And you don’t...
View ArticleBlock Heads: Reading a law doesn’t qualify you to give advice about it
The legal services monopoly often creates a shortage of affordable, reliable legal advice because bar organizations and lawyers hamstring workable alternatives that are designed to fill needs that...
View ArticleLying Still: Is the legal system corrupted more by official perjury or by the...
As we’ve noted before, lawyers are required to show respect for the legal system and not rock the boat — on pain of losing their license to practice law or being punished for ethics violations by state...
View ArticleAdvance To The Rear: Lawsuit advances may leave plaintiffs behind
You may have noticed the TV commercials promising to advance money to plaintiffs in personal injury cases before their case is settled (or, very rarely, taken to trial). The basic deal is that the...
View ArticleThe Weakest Link: Law firms targeted by computer espionage
A major element of a lawyer’s professional obligations to clients is the lawyer’s duty to keep the client’s confidential information confidential. Often called the “attorney-client communication...
View ArticleSemi-Lawyer Scam: Law firms pass cheap lawyers off as the real thing
A recent dispute over legal fees in a half-billion dollar Citigroup class action — fallout from the Wall Street crash — has shed light on how some law firms are using temporary or contract staff to...
View ArticleAbsence of Trust: ‘White shoe’ trust & estate lawyers dishonorably discharged...
The business model for many law firms depends on building an ever-growing base to an hourly billing pyramid. As noted many times before, this model has some built-in problems, including a tendency to...
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Educational Experience: Judges getting schooled by private interests
A new report tracks federal judges who are paid, or more likely just reimbursed, to attend various “educational seminars” with transparent political agendas. A nonprofit group’s research has restoked...
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Shipping & Handling: Beware of lawyers bearing gifts
Lawyers aren’t trendsetters when it comes to marketing and public relations methods. It used to be unethical to do very much advertising — on the theory, I suppose, that lawyers would mislead the...
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Inconvenient Truth: Firm’s internal e-mails expose excessive legal fees
There’s been quite a bit of negative publicity for DLA Piper thanks to internal emails among timekeepers gossiping about their work and the fees they were billing a client. The emails don’t really...
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Bragging Rights: Lawyers quoting uncollectable vanity rates
As we have noted many times before, those suggested retail hourly rates that some lawyers and firms publish aren’t real. The real, as collected, rates have been heavily discounted — often by half or...
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Suffer in Silence: Class counsel stifle class member objections
Fees for the Swiping It’s no secret that our system for using consumer class action litigation as a surrogate for actual government regulation and enforcement has created some bizarre unintended...
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Mixed Message: Bar spanks lawyer for $6 million fee bump, side-stepping $14...
Legal Fee Ethics Enforcement Mechanism Although there is an ethics rule prohibiting unreasonable fees (or some variation on that term) in all US jurisdictions, this provision is rarely enforced by bar...
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Curses, Spammed Again: Trademark lawyers peddle their wares to a skeptical...
Sometimes I get the chance to experience the legal system first hand, but from the civilian’s perspective. For example, sometimes one of my companies is a member of a class that gets notices about...
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MIA: Is your lawyer missing in action, with your money?
Here’s an example of the sort of basic mistakes lawyers make that can get them into ethics trouble. Note that the common thread is that client money was entrusted to the lawyer, either from a...
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Feeding Time: Plaintiff lawyer squabbles with lender over spoils
Here’s an insight into how plaintiff class action lawyers finance themselves by obtaining loans — apparently at very high effective interest rates — to fund their work before they get paid out of the...
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Daddy Issues: Bar’s Freudian urges curbed
The Arizona Bar is supposed to protect the citizens of Arizona from bad lawyers. When lawyers are suspended for periods of time, the bar typically tacks on various preconditions the lawyer must meet...
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Got Rats?: Panicked parish signs lopsided fee agreement
Remember the Pied Piper of Hamelin? He made a deal to rid Hamelin of rats, but the village didn’t pay, so he used his magic pipe to kidnap all the town’s children. Here’s a story about a Louisiana...
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