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Full-Text Articles in Law
May Lawyers Collect Whistleblower Bounties Under Dodd-Frank Act?, Barry R. Temkin
May Lawyers Collect Whistleblower Bounties Under Dodd-Frank Act?, Barry R. Temkin
Barry R. Temkin
May lawyers ethically collect whistleblower bounties from the government in exchange for revealing confidential client information to the Securities and Exchange Commission? Regulations promulgated by the SEC under the authority of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 permit the payment of bounties to whistleblowers who report corporate wrongdoing to the government. Both NYCLA Ethics Opinion 746 and the Second Circuit’s decision in Fair Laboratories warn that the disclosure of client confidential information in exchange for a government bounty raises significant ethical issues for lawyers. Given the permissive nature of the SEC’s whistleblower bounty program, it …
Solicitation By Defense Counsel: Ethical Pitfalls When Corporate Defense Counsel Offers Representation To Witnesses, Barry R. Temkin, Michael H. Stone
Solicitation By Defense Counsel: Ethical Pitfalls When Corporate Defense Counsel Offers Representation To Witnesses, Barry R. Temkin, Michael H. Stone
Barry R. Temkin
The ban on solicitation by attorneys in ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 7.3, and its state counterparts, has generally been used to prevent ambulance chasing by plaintiffs’ attorneys. However, a recent New York decision has raised the possibility that a defense lawyer could be disciplined for solicitation when offering his services to a non-party witness employed by a corporate defendant, even when doing so for no additional fee. The court in Rivera v. Lutheran Medical Center, referred a prominent national law firm to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee and disqualified the firm from representing several current and former employees of …