I’m going to highjack my own column this month to write about something seemingly off topic from legal ethics. This issue of Res Gestae features our incoming state bar association president, Erik Chickedantz.  In a display of the creative leadership we can expect more of under his tenure as president, he proposed, and the ISBA [...]

Looking back on approximately six years of Ethics Curbstone columns, it occurs to me that I have largely neglected, at least in a systemic way, treatment of the professional responsibility area that touches most frequently on the day-to-day working lives of lawyers: conflicts of interest. I propose to remedy that situation by a high-level overview [...]

I have tended to steer away from judicial ethics—it has not been my professional forté. But a situation developing in California raises very interesting questions about judicial ethics and the line between private and public lives of judicial officials.  How much personal privacy does a judge give up upon taking the bench?  To an extent, [...]

At the Indiana State Bar Association’s Fourth Conclave on Legal Education held at the I.U. Indianapolis Law School on September 24 and 25, 2010, I had the pleasure of moderating a break-out group entitled “Resiliency in the Face of Stress: The Law School and Law Practice Experience.” The leader of the session was G. Andrew [...]

The Indiana Supreme Court recently issued a comprehensive opinion on the ethics of various types of attorney fee arrangements. Matter of O’Farrell, 942 N.E.2d 799 (Ind. Feb. 11, 2010).  The three common types of arrangements discussed were: fixed or flat fees; advance fee payments to secure payment of future hourly fees, sometimes called “special” or “security” retainers; [...]

In order to unburden myself from expectations that I would do a top ten professional responsibility stories column every year, I will pass on doing so this year in favor of the following. Foreign Lawyer Administrative Agency Practice On October 18, 2010, Kevin Smith, the Clerk of the Supreme Court, sent a letter to most—perhaps [...]

One of the more controversial changes imposed by the recent amendments to the lawyer advertising rules relates to the use of law firm-like names by lawyers associated by physical location, but not joined together as a formal legal entity. Effective January 1, 2011, Indiana Rule of Professional Conduct 7.5(d) will state: “Lawyers may state or [...]

On October 14, 2010, the Indiana Supreme Court approved significant and long-awaited amendments to Indiana’s lawyer advertising rules.  They can be reviewed in red-line format showing the deletions from and additions to the current rule at: http://www.in.gov/judiciary/files/rule-amends-2010-prof-conduct-1014.pdf.  They will become effective on January 1, 2011.  Many of the changes are significant.  For the first time, [...]

Disciplinary decisions by the Supreme Court ordering serious sanctions may hold a certain fascination. But the vast majority of lawyers, who genuinely want to comply with ethical obligations, would do better to focus on minor misconduct cases.  These are the ones that provide lessons for lawyers who would never dream of lying to a judge [...]

An important new law review article and two recent lawyer discipline cases—perplexing when read side by side—present a good opportunity to write about mental state requirements in the Rules of Professional Conduct. The article is Nancy J. Moore, Mens Rea Standards in Lawyer Discipline Codes, 23 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 1 (Winter 2010); the recent [...]