Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Legal Ethics, Roy M. Sobelson

Mercer Law Review

The biggest news in Georgia legal ethics this year actually made it into the general press when the Georgia Supreme Court approved a bar committee opinion confirming that real estate closings remained the exclusive province of licensed Georgia lawyers. With the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and consumer advocates all weighing in with contrary opinions, the court held firm against the inevitable, continuing criticism and cries of protectionism. Combined with the current debates over both multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional practices, it looks like the profession will continue to engage in heated debate in Georgia, if not worldwide, well into the …

Nothing Lost, Nothing Owed: Supreme Court Upholds State Iolta Program In Brown V. Legal Foundation Of Washington, Robert C. Hughes Iii

Mercer Law Review

In a 5-4 decision in Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, the United States Supreme Court held that a state law that (1) requires lawyers and limited practitioner officers ("LPOs") to deposit client funds that cannot otherwise generate net-earning for their clients into an interest on lawyer's trust account ("IOLTA account") and (2) mandates that the interest produced on those funds be transferred to a different owner for a legitimate public use could constitute a per se taking of the clients' right to that interest, but no compensation is owed to such clients when they suffer no net loss. …

Save A Little Room For Me: The Necessity Of Naming As Inventors Practitioners Who Conceive Of Claimed Subject Matter, David Hricik, Alexandra Geczi, Zachary Thomas

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses ethical and malpractice issues arising from the fact that attorneys who prosecute patents almost inevitably add to the inventor's original disclosure to the attorney. In the course of drafting a patent application-a process in which the attorney describes, necessarily in his own words, what the client has invented-the attorney will, at minimum, contribute ideas, thoughts, and means of expression that the client had not used. The application is not a verbatim transcript of an interview with the client; it is the creation of the patent lawyer. ...

However, under established law governing inventorship and derivation, seldom during …