The Minnesota Supreme Court has suspended a lawyer for settling a case without revealing to the opposing side the small matter of his client being dead. There aren’t many misconceptions a lawyer is absolutely required to correct by informing the other side, unless the lawyer or the client clearly created a the misconception by its own words or actions. But the death of a client mid-case is one of them. Continuing to negotiate as if the client is alive is an affirmative and material misrepresentation.

This principle is always good for a laugh in a legal ethics seminar, but instances of its application are rare. In this case, the suspended lawyer may have uttered a famous quote when his adversary, after agreeing to a settlement, heard that the client had died and asked him whether it was true. Thomas Lyons, Jr. replied, “Yes. How ironic!”

Critics see another irony: the attorney in question had been disciplined for misrepresentations seven times, but is only being suspended. This would seem to be a pretty clear case of an established pattern of dishonesty that isn’t likely to change, and the message send by the Bar, the Court and the profession would be much more comforting to the public if all three told Lyons that he should find another line of work, presumably one where he wasn’t expected tell the whole truth.

Op-Ed columnist, perhaps.