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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
Arbitration Clauses In Fee Retainer Agreements., Chrissy L. Schwennsen
Arbitration Clauses In Fee Retainer Agreements., Chrissy L. Schwennsen
St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics
Due to the variety of approaches jurisdictions employ when determining the legal ramifications of arbitration clauses in fee retainer agreements, it’s best to include an explanation of the legal consequences of arbitration in the agreements. The attorney can, and should, fully explain the potential benefits of arbitration to clients. State courts take various viewpoints on the issue, and most stand contrary to the position of the American Bar Association (ABA) and state ethics committees on the subject. Consequently, attorneys must disclose truthful and accurate information regarding arbitration agreements when engaged in multijurisdictional practice in order to ensure protection from malpractice …
Regulating The Behavior Of Lawyers In Mass Individual Representations: A Call For Reform., Richard Zitrin
Regulating The Behavior Of Lawyers In Mass Individual Representations: A Call For Reform., Richard Zitrin
St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics
Cases in which lawyers represent large numbers of individual plaintiffs are increasingly common. While these cases have some of the indicia of class actions, they are not class actions, usually because there are no common damages, but rather individual representations on a mass scale. Current ethics rules do not provide adequate guidance for even the most ethical lawyers. The absence of sufficiently flexible, practical ethical rules has become an open invitation for less-ethical attorneys to abuse, often severely, the mass-representation problem. It is necessary to reform the current rules, but only with a solution that is both practical and attainable, …