Should Your Lawyer’s Website Tell the Whole Truth?

By htsyl, 30 December, 2011, No Comment

First, sorry to have been in hiding for months. Certainly doesn’t mean that the world of legal “unethics” has resolved itself; simply means I haven’t been sharing!

I went to the website of a lawyer that I met recently at a networking event. In the description of his background on the home page and on the “attorney” page, it says he “is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center” with a Master of Laws in Securities and Financial Regulation. Most of you probably recognize Georgetown University as having a top notch law school and reputation. I was actually sort of surprised, given other things I know about this lawyer, that he had gone to law school there. Well, it turns out he didn’t exactly get his law degree there – when I did a little more checking, turns out he got his J.D. (juris doctor/law degree) at a law school in Michigan that’s been around since 1972.

Seems misleading to me. Crime of omission? Puffing, as they say in the law? I don’t like it. Can’t say yet whether it’s technically an “ethical breach,” but it has that whole “walks like a duck” look to it.

I wouldn’t have been so nosy about the whole thing, but this particular lawyer went out of his way during a group presentation to say that if you do your estate planning (wills) using a website (like Legal Zoom, where I got my will) instead of hiring a lawyer (him) that it wouldn’t be “legal.” Again, very misleading. Actually, not true. So, I might have given him a break on the badly worded website if it hadn’t been for the misleading comment.

Moral of the story – same old, same old – Don’t check your common sense at the door. Trust your instincts. If it seems “fish” or “duck-like,” check it out. Just because it’s on the Internet, doesn’t make it true, or complete.

Signing out of 2011 – see you again in 2012.

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TV Lawyers – Fact or Fiction?

By htsyl, 5 May, 2011, No Comment

I watch entirely too much TV and have to admit that I get sucked into courtroom and legal dramas. I read a blog post saying that CBS’s The Good Wife was stretching ethics a bit much. My first reaction was to agree, and I do understand that in the name of entertainment and getting the story told in the space of an hour, ethics may seem dangerously stretched in order to make a point. Then I watched a couple more episodes (I really like this show) and was struck with another thought.  We should be cognizant that some of these ethical breaches that seem so overly dramatic may just be realistic portrayals of what goes on behind closed doors – between attorneys, judges, clients, corporate big-wigs, anyone who may have a stake in the outcome of a case. It’s that whole concept of “the end justifies the means” that forms the basis for bad ethical behavior in the first place. You know, “I’m not a lawyer, I just play one on TV” – except for Fred Thompson and Oscar Goodman and all those politicians that are lawyers. I’m just saying.

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Judges Are Like Umpires

By htsyl, 27 February, 2011, No Comment

Judges are like umpires, Chief Justice John Roberts famously declared during his confirmation hearing five years ago. “They make sure everybody plays by the rules.” But what would happen if some umpires showed up at swank resorts as featured attendees at one team’s pregame meetings? Even the hint of such favoritism would trigger a fan revolt and demands from Capitol Hill that the umpires involved be disqualified. Americans are about to find out just how much baseball and our judicial system really are alike.

Don’t get me started! Take a look at the whole story at the full blog post by Bob Edgar, President & CEO of Common Cause. And this story is about the judges at the top of the heap. What are the possibilities in your local criminal court, family and probate court, your state’s appellate court? You know what they say about one bad apple…

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