Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, here.
Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics.
Happy Monday!
The past few days took me from Michigan to Texas. Here are two of my favorite views from last week.
I head to Chicago later this week for the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers Annual Meeting. (Please say hello if you are there.)
You’d think that legal ethics news would slow down a bit during the summer, but no. It was a busy week, so you get 15 headlines instead of your usual ten. It’s notable to me that two involve lawyers protesting, both in the US and abroad. (For more on my thoughts about that topic, see my Michigan Law Review piece, “When Lawyers Protest,” downloadable for free here.)
Highlights from Last Week – Top 15 Headlines 📰
#1 “More Than 70 Legal Ethics Experts Warn DOJ Is Trying to Put Its Lawyers Above the Law.” From Democracy Defenders Fund: “More than 70 legal ethics scholars and experts filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to reject the DOJ’s attempt to stop disciplinary proceedings against former Department official Jeffrey Clark. The amicus brief warns that the DOJ is trying to shield its lawyers from the same independent ethics enforcement that applies to every other attorney.” Read more here and download the brief here. [Full disclosure: I am one of the legal ethics experts who joined the brief.]
#2 “Judicial Ethics Proposals on Financial Conflicts, FOIA Revived.” From Bloomberg Law: “A Democratic senator is proposing a trio of bills that would crack down on conflicts of interest and allow public records requests into the federal judiciary, as part of a push to increase transparency in the federal courts. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a Judiciary Committee member, will reintroduce the measures on Monday as a package, according to his office. Two of the bills aim to prevent Supreme Court justices and lower court judges from handling litigation in which they have a financial interest. The measures would expand conflicts of interest rules that apply to the executive branch to the judiciary and require justices and judges to put certain financial assets in a blind trust. A third proposal would make the judiciary’s administrative office subject to the Freedom of Information Act.” Read more here.
#3 “6-Month Suspension for Toronto Lawyer Who Cited Fake ChatGPT Cases, Blamed Law Student, Faced Contempt of Court Hearing, Went Back to ChatGPT For Advice.” From the Toronto Star: “A Toronto lawyer who cited fake cases generated by AI in a civil court matter – and then lied by trying to blame her law student – has been suspended from practising for six months. As jointly requested by the parties, the Law Society Tribunal suspended Mary Hyun-Sook (Jisuh) Lee on Thursday and ordered that she pay $10,000 in costs, in what may be the first decision by a legal regulator punishing a lawyer for misusing AI in court. … Lee is not the first lawyer caught misusing AI in court, but the Law Society Tribunal’s decision appears to be the first publicized ruling from a legal regulator handing out punishment for that misconduct, said Amy Salyzyn, a University of Ottawa law professor who specializes in legal ethics. ‘The sanctions in this case, which are significant, send an important message to the legal profession that the misuse of AI that results in fake or misleading legal authorities being included in court submissions is a serious violation of their professional responsibilities,’ Salyzyn said.” Read more here.
#4 “New York Times Lawyer Talks About DOJ Withdrawing Subpoenas Sent to Times’ Reporters.” From National Public Radio: “NPR’s Michel Martin speaks to the New York Times’ lead newsroom lawyer David McCraw about the Justice Department withdrawing subpoenas it had sent to the Times’ reporters.” Read more and listen here.
#5 “Former Star Supreme Court Lawyer Gets Six-Year Sentence in Tax Case.” From The Wall Street Journal: “Once-prominent Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for tax evasion and mortgage fraud, in a case that chronicled his double life as a high stakes poker player while he occupied the upper echelon of the legal profession.” Read more here (gift link).
#6 “American Bar Association Says Government Lawyers Must Report Colleagues’ Unlawful Conduct.” From Reuters: “U.S. government lawyers have an ethical obligation to report violations of the law committed by fellow employees when those actions may cause ‘substantial injury’ to government organizations, according to a new ethics advisory from the American Bar Association.” Read more here and download Formal Opinion 524 here.
#7 “New Jersey Bars Lawyers From Having Sex With Clients.” From the New Jersey Globe: “New Jersey lawyers will be prohibited from beginning sexual relationships with clients under a new ethics rule adopted by the state Supreme Court. The amendment to the Rules of Professional Conduct, announced Thursday, takes effect September 1 and creates a clear conflict-of-interest rule covering attorneys who become sexually involved with people they represent. … New Jersey had been one of only ten states without an explicit rule prohibiting lawyers from having sexual relations with clients, according to the Supreme Court’s Professional Responsibility Rules Committee.” Read more here.
#8 “Lawyers, Judges, and the Ethics of Judicial Complaints.” An op-ed from Professor C. Alexander Evans (Florida) in AMNY: “When a lawyer files a complaint against a judge, the immediate reaction is sometimes to ask whether the lawyer has crossed an ethical line. But that reaction overlooks a more fundamental question: under the rules governing the legal profession, there are circumstances in which an attorney’s obligations to a client may not merely permit raising concerns about judicial conduct—they may actually require it.” Read more here.
#9 “Want Supreme Court Term Limits? Here’s How to Do It.” From Major Questions with Jesse Wegman: “At 40 pages, the memo is the most thorough and evenhanded treatment of the subject I have seen yet. While this may sound like a funny thing to say about a heavily footnoted legal memo, it’s actually thrilling to read. (Perhaps that marks me as a Supreme Court nerd, but you already knew that.) The thrill comes from seeing a path to a desperately needed reform laid out before you with such clarity and rigor, with the most serious objections addressed head-on and refuted. This is how change happens, friends! Much of the last several decades of American politics have felt like an exercise in futility, as long-simmering problems only get worse and we are told there’s no way to fix them. Here, on this one issue at least, is a clear way. First, I’ll summarize the memo, which you can read in full here.” Read more here.
#10 “Fallout From Last Week’s Congressional Hearing on DEI and Legal Education.” From Derek Muller in his Substack Law School Docket: “A dean abruptly departs after testimony about the law school.” Read more here.
#11 “Got $29? AI-Driven Platform Makes Filing a Lawsuit Easy. But Is It Legal?” From Law.com: “The business model of Petty Lawsuit could make it vulnerable to litigation for practicing law without a license, says Sean Griffin.” Read more here.
#12 “Alabama’s New AI Ethical Guidance and Its Impact on Legal Departments.” From the National Law Review: “Alabama State Bar releases updated guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence AI, explaining how existing responsibilities apply.” Read more here.
#13 “Ethics Complaint Filed Against Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.” From Lawyers Defending American Democracy: “Lawyers Defending American Democracy has filed an ethics complaint against Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, with the Attorney Grievance Committee for the Supreme Court of the State of New York.” Read more here.
#14 “Wayne County Public Defenders Launch Strike Over Healthcare, Wage Fight.” From WXYZ ABC News Detroit: “Attorneys who represent a significant number of criminal defendants in Wayne County went on strike today after months of negotiations failed.” Read more here.
#15 “Kenyan Lawyers Paralyse Courts in Nationwide Revolt Over Judicial Corruption Claim.” From The Guardian Nigeria News: “Kenya’s justice system was thrown into turmoil on Wednesday as lawyers across the country boycotted court proceedings in an unprecedented protest against alleged judicial corruption, chronic case delays and what they described as a growing culture of impunity within the Judiciary.” Read more here.
Get Hired 💼
Did you miss the 500+ job postings from previous weeks? Find them all here.
Upcoming Ethics Events & Other Announcements 🗓️
Did you miss an announcement from previous weeks? Find them all here.
Keep in Touch 📝
Do you have colleagues who care about legal ethics? Please share the Roundup with them. I’d love to see our community continue to grow!
News tips? Announcements? Events? A job to post? Reading recommendations? Email legalethics@substack.com – but be sure to subscribe first, otherwise the email won’t be delivered.
Renee Knake Jefferson holds the endowed Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics and is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston. Check out more of her writing at the Legal Ethics Roundup. Find her on X (formerly Twitter) at @reneeknake or Bluesky at legalethics.bsky.social.
The post Legal Ethics Roundup: ABA Opines Gov Lawyers Must Report Unlawful Conduct, Toronto Lawyer Suspended Over AI, Senate Bills On Judges’ Finances/FOIA & More appeared first on Above the Law.
Recent Comments