The Legal Profession Blog reports that a New Jersey lawyer Donald Bedell Jr. has been reprimanded for forging two clients’ signatures on releases for an unauthorized settlement, appending his own signature as a “witness,” and then attesting that both clients had appeared before him to sign.
Not suspended. Not disbarred. Reprimanded. Continue reading
Attorney Barry Wilson is undoubtedly doing his job, and it is a tough one: arguing for the justice system to do less than throw the book at Boston’s disgraced former Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, who richly deserves it. This is the lawyer’s sacred duty to a client that makes the profession the butt of jokes and the object of contempt, but it is an ethical and systemic necessity. It also can be stomach-turning in cases like Turner’s. All Wilson has in his defense arsenal is the hoary “he’s suffered enough” argument. It is always ethically dubious, and this time it boarders on ridiculous. Continue reading
”Radical times call for radical measures.”
—-Thomas Walkley, a lawyer from Norton, Ohio, explaining why he dropped his trousers while counseling two 19-year-old youths as part of mentoring program to help at-risk young people. Continue reading
Hewlett-Packard has been sued in a class action lawsuit, made up of a huge number of users of the company’s printers and ink cartridges, for a wide variety of problems. Here’s what the lawyers have come up with: a $5,000,000 settlement to be paid off in $2 and $7 coupons that can only be used at HP.com to purchase Hewlett-Packard products, and which can’t be transferred or combined, and will expire in six months. Consider: Continue reading
Now we know—at least when Florida lawyers are concerned.
Tampa lawyer Nicholas F. Mooney and Palmetto lawyer Kurt D. Mitchell received suspensions from the Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court after an escalating e-mail exchange that continued over six months.
A lack of civility is considered a breach of professionalism in all jurisdictions, but not an ethical violation calling into question fitness to practice law—the standard for bar discipline—unless it is extreme, and usually not until there have been warnings issued. Apparently this particular spat was just too much for the Bar to take, perhaps because it reflects badly on the entire profession. Continue reading
As one who has argued that certain TV commercials, notably the infamous “green shirt” Tide commercial, the Twix commercial and Direct TV’s disturbing (but often funny) series showing football fans hurting rival team supporters, I know I’m asking for trouble by declaring, as I officially do here, that for compliance firm Global Ethics to criticize TV shows like “The Office” and “30 Rock” for supposed workplace ethics violations is absurd. But it is absurd. And criticizing the commercials in question is not.
Hear me out. Continue reading
I thought nothing could make me smile in 2010 like the lawyer who told her client she was possessed. This isn’t as spectacular, but it sure is welcome.
The Illinois Administrator has filed a complaint alleging that an attorney falsely certified that he had completed online Continuing Legal Education ( CLE) courses when he actually had his secretary watch the seminars and respond to the periodic prompts required that are supposed to prove that the lawyer is paying attention.
From the complaint: Continue reading
The tort system evolved to ensure that those injured by the recklessness, maliciousness or negligence of others can enlist the courts and juries to help them be made whole. It presumes, but, sadly, does not require, a measure of fairness, proportion, personal responsibility, forbearance, prudence, empathy, and common sense, as well as a lack of greed.
Two recent lawsuits, involving a golfer and a diner, illustrate how an otherwise good system can be used unethically.
First, the Diner: Continue reading
Good intentions, it is said, pave the road to Hell. It’s an especially direct road when the good intentions are those of a prosecutor who doesn’t have the skills or common sense to reach the correct decision to resolve a rather easy ethical conflict. An ethical conflict occurs when there are valid ethical arguments for diametrically opposed actions, and one must weigh the priorities, implications and likely results in order to make the most ethical choice. Mark Hurlbert, the district attorney for Eagle, Colorado, faced such a conflict, as prosecutors often do. He botched it royally, and that road he’s paving is going to reach far beyond Colorado. Continue reading
Well, I have to admit they were creative. And despicable.
2010’s most unethical maneuvers ran the gamut from lying to zombie exploitation, from false identity to extortion. Unfortunately, most of the worst stunts were pulled by or on behalf of Democrats; I say unfortunately because I try awfully hard to keep these kinds of lists in partisan balance. But the Democrats and their progressive fans were especially slimy this time around, and it it figures. When the going gets tough, the tough get unethical, and it is the Democrats who are facing ballot box carnage. They have been pushing the envelope, to say the least, in their campaign tactics, and I think it probably made their situation more dire rather than less.
Here, in reverse order of ethical outrageousness, are the Ten Most Unethical Maneuvers of Campaign 2010: Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 