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Zero Impact Lawyering: Semi-retired lawyer does 100% pro bono
Our legal system is supposed to dispense fair justice for all, but it does not. There are many flaws in the system, some of which are built in — human beings are not perfect — and others are man-made...
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Lien On The Client: ABA hopes to protect lawyers from providing key files to...
A collateral complication of a “divorce” between lawyers and their clients is working out custody of the fruits of their relationship: The lawyer’s “files” containing work and data relevant to the...
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Human Experimentation: Lawyers may “moonlight” outside expertise
Most lawyers must have a bachelor’s degree (in any subject), plus an advanced degree from an accredited law school (usually a Juris Doctor, with some exceptions), then they must satisfy various state...
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Prix Fixe: Setting standard legal fees is illegal price fixing
While there are other stories about the acceptance of the billable hour as a de facto standard for legal billing, this is one of the more entertaining I have seen. This is the story of how the US...
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Pyramid Scheme: Contract lawyers treated like slaves for lawyer profit
There’s a new layer at the bottom of the billable hours pyramid. The top is still occupied by partners, followed by non-partner lawyers, and then by the fairly recent paralegal and other...
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Stupid Poor People: Bar study finds people think lawyers don’t make a difference
The American Bar Foundation, an arm of the ABA and thus devoted to helping to advance the cause of lawyers and the business of law, has studied how poor people deal with their “legal” problems and is...
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Flattening Justice: State commission set to level civil justice system
Flat Earth Society Image Local, state, and federal courts are supported by taxpayers and, in some part, by various charges made by the court to file lawsuits, for example. In return, the courts are...
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Do As They Say: Bar officials flunk basic spreadsheet skills
One of the functions performed by the state bar organizations in the US is to administer the process of licensing new lawyers. This has anti-competitive implications because many bars also act as the...
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Debt to Society: Prosecutors lending official letterhead to debt collectors
People call or email me all the time with situations they think involve unethical or incompetent behavior by lawyers. Malpractice and unethical conduct are two different things and they are handled...
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Passive Aggression: Juror research limited to “passive” means, while clients...
Social media provide possible sources for lawyers of the public or semi-private thoughts of clients, opponents, witnesses, and even jurors. This can be a goldmine for witness impeachment or an...
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Immaterial Fact: Bar approves some lying in settlement negotiations
Ethics restrictions on lawyers preclude them from engaging in the sort of misleading or sneaky practices that are common in the business world, for example. A lawyer is not, for example, supposed to...
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The Friendly Ghost: Those opposed to legal ghostwriters are seeing issues...
One unfortunate — but inevitable — byproduct of legal ethics (or any system for regulation of any competitive business) is that ethics rules and the entities that enforce them are often abused as a...
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Finder’s Fee: Pennsylvania justice’s nonlawyer wife allegedly received...
For all the effort the Bar, courts, and some lawyers put into expecting the public to respect the legal process, you would think that they would be extra careful about those situations in which money...
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Correlate This: Non-rampant unethical behavior ascribed to old age, Great...
Jumping to headline-grabbing conclusions based on thin evidence is what keeps the news media going. Every time someone crashes a car it’s got to be put into the hot topic of the day, like distracted...
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Crumbling Legal Infrastructure: Patching the facade won’t fix billing pyramid
Bent Pyramid of Snefru(Copyrt by Allan J. Mathews) The flawed hourly billing revenue model causes all sorts of collateral damage to clients and even the lawyers who live by the model. You just can’t...
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 ArticleChum’s Eye View: Clients should learn from what consultants to lawyers say...
The demise of an established law firm, especially in New York, causes lots of press discussion (and recriminations), with a recent example being Dewey LeBouef’s demise. As noted before, part of...
View ArticleNo Suspense: US Supreme Court assumes the legal system is rigged
Class actions are supposed to be an efficient way to resolve legal problems that would otherwise slip through the cracks in the legal system or overwhelm the system with a multitude of smaller but...
View ArticleClients Gone Wild: ABA claims clients are rushing to pay ever higher rates...
This little bit of nonsense comes from the trade association for lawyers, which is apparently unaware of how the legal biz actually works. An arbitrary, but not statistically relevant, small sample of...
View ArticleLook It Up: Clients resisting improper charges for legal research costs
Another of the legal billing issues we have championed for years is gaining traction with the client community, which in turn is making a difference with law firm billing practices. But there are...
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