sex with clients

Ethics Dunce: Innovative Legal Marketing

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Would "Seinfeld's" Jackie Chiles be a worse spokeperson for lawyers than Arnie Becker? Hmmmm...

L.A. Law’ Actor Corbin Bernsen, whom we originally got to know as priapic divorce attorney Arnie Becker on the old TV lawyer series  “L.A. Law,” was recruited in 2009, fifteen years after “L.A. Law” went to re-run heaven, to serve as the paid spokesperson for Innovative Legal Marketing, a Virginia-based company providing marketing services for lawyers and law firms. Now Bernsen has filed a lawsuit claiming he’s owed more than $668,000 after the company allegedly breached its contract and dropped him.

I have no idea whether Bernsen or the marketing firm has the law on its side in the suit, but I do know this: for a legal services marketing firm to recruit the actor who played Arnie Becker to promote legal services is an implicit insult to the legal profession and the intelligence of the public. Continue reading →

Texas Lawyers And Sex: Not Horny, Just Wise

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

"Now about my fee...."

Texas lawyers have voted down a proposed ethics rule that specifically condemned attorneys having intimate relations with their clients. Naturally, the media will represent the decision as the predictable reaction of a bunch of high-rolling, fun-loving Texas legal horn-dogs to people trying to spoil the perks of their job; even the legal media has settled on a misleading headline:  “Texas lawyers reject ban on sex with clients.” But Texas lawyers don’t think that sex with clients is ethical, or want it to be ethical. Like the attorneys in many other states, they just think having a rule on this topic is bad idea. And they are right. Continue reading →

“The Good Wife” Ethics: Sex With Clients Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Diane, Diane..what were you thinking?

Last night’s episode of TV’s smartest legal drama since the 1960’s, CBS’s “The Good Wife,” dealt with the “no sex with clients” ethics rule adopted by most states (but not Washington, D.C.!) in a continuing subplot about the budding romance between firm tigress-partner Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski ) and ballistics expert Kurt McVeigh, played by Gary Cole. In the episode, entitled “Silver Bullet,” Lockhart decides to represent McVeigh when he is sued for millions.

That’s her first ethics mistake. Continue reading →

The Arnie Becker Rule [Updated 12/11/16]

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For about 20 years, the consensus has been building in the legal profession that a lawyer sleeping with his clients is not only a bad idea, but also should be prohibited by the formal ethics rules. States like California, Oregon and New York quickly adopted such a rule while other bars resisted; when the ABA added the “no sex with clients” provision to is Model Rule 1.8 in 2003, more states followed suit. Now Virginia, one of the most respected bars in the country, is considering its first  pronouncement on the subject, in the form of a formal ethics opinion. Continue reading →