legal ethics

More on Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Lying Attorney General

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Now that we know a little bit more about Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Attorney General whose pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat has him periodically masquerading as a Vietnam War veteran, it is clear that simply defeating him at the polls isn’t enough. He should be impeached as Attorney General, and deserves professional discipline from the Connecticut Bar as well. Why? Well, he’s an unrepentant serial liar on a grand scale. Lawyers, including Attorney Generals, are prohibited from engaging in dishonesty, misrepresentation, fraud and deceit, and it is professional misconduct when this rises to a level that calls a lawyer’s trustworthiness and fitness to practice law into question. Does pretending to have credentials, especially military combat experience, that you do not have in order to get a job reach this level?

Of course it does. Continue reading →

“The Good Wife” Ethics Follies

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“The Good Wife,” CBS’s legal drama starring Julianna Margulies, began as an unusually nuanced show of its type that presented intriguing ethical dilemmas without crossing into David Kelley’s over-the-top Legal Theater of the Absurd. Little by little, however, the show’s willingness to ignore core legal ethics principles is becoming more pronounced. “Boom,” which aired last week, continues a trend that is ominous, considering “The Good Wife” is still in its first season. After all, the lawyers in Kelley’s “The Practice” didn’t start finding severed heads and getting charged with murder until a couple of seasons in.

If you missed “Boom,” or if you didn’t but had misplaced your A.B.A. Model Rules of Professional Conduct, here are the legal ethics howlers committed by the “Good Wife’s” attorneys: Continue reading →

A Blogger Asks: “Why Can’t I Date My Professor After the Grades Are In?”

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Some times you have to look a little more closely to discover the underlying ethics issue.

A blog called “Dating Glory” puzzles:

“I understand that it’s not a good idea to form relationships with professors while still in the class (favoritism, etc.). But why is it such a big deal when a prof becomes involved with a student who will never be his student again? Especially if they are both single and in and around the same age? Why would this jeopardize a professors job? I like my professor (used to be professor ) a lot, and I get the feeling he likes me. He spends a lot of time talking with me in his office and he often looks at me in ways that makes me think he does like me. I want to ask him for coffee but haven’t because I’ve heard this might jeopardize his job. I don’t mind as much that he might turn me down since I’m no longer his student. But what’s the big deal anyway? Why can’t we be free to date if we both want to? Lawyers date their clients all the time.” Continue reading →

Why Lawyers Should Work “For Good”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Pro bono legal work (short for pro bono publico, or “for the public good”) is when lawyers take on cases free of charge. Some lawyers—and you know who you are!—would say that the primary reason to take on pro bono cases is that membership in the Bar requires it. That’s compliance, however, driven by non-ethical considerations, not ethics. There are excellent reasons to work pro bono that have nothing to do with being able to check off mandatory hours, and everything to do with the crucial roles lawyers have a duty to fulfill in a free society.

Georgia attorney Dawn Levine compiled this list of  “The Top Eight Reasons to Take Pro Bono Cases;” I recommend the whole article. Her list, however, should be posted on the walls of every attorney’s office. It represents the best aspirations of an unfairly maligned profession. Here it is… Continue reading →

Don’t Tell Mom the Client’s Dead

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

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!” Continue reading →

The Hood Fiasco: SCOTUS Ducks An Ethical Imperative

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Charles Hood has been on Death Row in Texas since 1990, when he was convicted of murder in the shootings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson’s home in Plano, Tx. Hood had worked for Williamson and was living in his home. There was plenty of convincing evidence that Hood committed the murders; his defense was essentially based on mitigating circumstances. Nonetheless, it was by any logical and ethical standards, an outrageously unfair trial. Why? In a scenario that would have been laughed out of a “Law and Order” writers’ conference, the trial judge, Verla Sue Holland was sleeping the prosecutor,  county district attorney Tom O’Connell. Continue reading →

A. J. Pierzynski, Baseball Cheating and Moral Gray Zones

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The baseball season is certainly off to an unethical start.

In Tuesday’s game between the Blue Jays and White Sox, Toronto pitcher Ricky Romero’s gestating no-hitter was aborted in the 8th inning in part because of some deceptive play-acting by ChiSox catcher A. J. Pierzynski. Every era  has one player who acquires a reputation for being tricky, a.k.a. “dirty,” and Pierzynski is the current title holder. When he came to bat against Romero, the catcher with the unspellable name took advantage of a pitch that bounced in the dirt near him to hop up and down as if his widdle toe had a ball-induced boo-boo. Incredibly (for even the White Sox announcers were chatting about how obvious it was that the ball hadn’t touched A. J., noting that he wasn’t even hopping on the most plausibly injured foot), home umpire Tim McClelland stood by silently as Pierzynski trotted to first base. Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston protested to no avail, and, not for the first time, A. J. Pierzynski had stolen first base. Now Romero had to pitch from the stretch rather than a wind-up, and the no-hitter (and the shut-out) was no-history seconds later, as Toronto’s Alex Rios hit a home run.

Did A. J. Pierzynski cheat? Should he be fined or punished for feigning an injury,  as some have suggested? Continue reading →

The Conundrum of the Unsuccessful Cheat

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A sharp-eyed Chicago White Sox fan with a blog at his disposal caught something interesting in yesterdays Twins-White Sox game, which ended in a ChiSox victory when Twins baserunner J.J. Hardy was thrown out at home to end the game. As Hardy rounded third, Twins third base coach Scott Ullger stepped on to the playing field, planted one foot on third and for all the world looked like a runner holding the bag until he saw if the relay throw was going to be fielded cleanly. Was his intent to fool Twin Mark Teahan, who had just received the throw from the outfield, into believing—just for a crucial second—that he was Hardy, thus delaying the relay throw home? If so, it didn’t work: Teahan threw home quickly and well, and Hardy was a dead duck. As the blogger,Jim Margalus, writes,

“…it would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if the relay were botched, because what Ullger is doing seems to be in violation of rule 7.09(h), in which…‘With a runner on third base, the base coach leaves his box and acts in any manner to draw a throw by a fielder;… is defined as an act of interference’.” Continue reading →

Exemplary Ethics: Opportunity for the Gambling Grannies’ Lawyers

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

My discussion of that sad case of the two elderly Connecticut sisters who are embroiled in a lawsuit over lottery winnings did not focus on their lawyers, and that was intentional. Though I spend most of my time teaching legal ethics, I only venture there on Ethics Alarms rarely, because 1) to do it right usually requires being technical, and technical is not conducive to 700-1000 word essays, and 2) most lawyers are bored by legal ethics, so non-lawyers figure to be bored even more.  A new reason became crystal clear this week, when I foolishly steered an issue involving blog ethics into legal ethics because the blogger happened to be a lawyer, was reckless with my terms, and ended up unfairly implying something I did not mean to imply. My apology for that fiasco is here.

Nevertheless, I should have discussed the role of lawyers in the Connecticut case. I am not privy to their advice to their respective clients, and for all I know, they may well have attempted what I suggest here. Whether they did or not, this case is an excellent one to reflect on what lawyers do, and ought to do. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“One of my students this year has a vaguely Hispanic name but is literally the whitest girl you’ve ever met. Her mother straight out asked, ‘If we mark she’s Latino on the application, is that something that they would ever challenge?’ I told her honestly my best guess, which was no. And, if early admissions are any indication, it seemed to work.”

—-A  guidance counselor (and former Ivy League admission officer) at a private school in the South, quoted by Kathleen Kingsbury in her report for The Daily Beast on dubious college admission tactics.

This, of course, is completely unethical for both the student and the counselor, who is exactly like a tax attorney or accountant who lets a client know that his fraudulent return will almost certainly not be audited by the I.R.S. Both of those professionals violate their ethics codes by aiding and abetting such conduct, and the quoted counselor is just as bad.

What should the counselor have said? Continue reading →