I write a snark blog. Snark blogs are better suited to schadenfreude-type grimness and not existential grimness.
Things have taken an existentially grim turn, folks.
But here we are. It’s a multi-alarm fire this time.
Since I last wrote about this subject, my nerd association put out a statement condemning the current administration’s attack on lawyers, in response to executive orders purporting to revoke security clearances and restrict lawyers’ ability to practice, against Covington & Burling, but Perkins
Continue Reading Lawyering in a Time of Lawlessness (And Also Probably Cholera)
Halling & Cayo. S.C. Blogs
Latest from Halling & Cayo. S.C.
Play Everything-On-Fire Games, Win Everything-On-Fire Prizes
We learned this afternoon that several Democratic members of the US Senate filed a Request for Disciplinary Investigation with the DC Office of Disciplinary Counsel against Interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin. They have cited a laundry list of potential violations, including the earlier-reported conflict in which Martin (as interim USA) moved to dismiss a January 6 case against Joseph Padilla, who was represented by Martin. They also cited several instances in which Martin may
Continue Reading Play Everything-On-Fire Games, Win Everything-On-Fire Prizes
Setting The Rule Of Law On Fire, Just To Watch It Burn
So I’ve added a tag to my blog, “Everything on Fire.” It may be partially self-explanatory, but I am adding it to blog entries that discuss the contempt for the rule of law held by the current federal administration, among others. I’ve gone back and tagged a few prior entries as well. I am not sure these entries will always have a specific legal ethics bent (they will, at least, touch on lawyers and law practice), but the rule
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Dead Men Neither Wear Plaid Nor Render Opinions To A Reasonable Degree of Professional Certainty
Taking a break from everything being on fire to report this quick hit (h/t several people on BlueSky): every judge interprets the Daubert standard (or whatever standard applies in their state) a little different, but I assure you that a qualification for anyone to testify as an expert witness on any subject is that they must be alive.
Richard Gadrow, an appraiser and witness designated by the plaintiffs in a Southern District of Texas case, died in June
Continue Reading Dead Men Neither Wear Plaid Nor Render Opinions To A Reasonable Degree of Professional Certainty
Bondi Blues
Earlier this week, and mostly along party lines, the Senate confirmed Pam Bondi to serve as the United States Attorney General.
You will note that this job is not called “Attorney General of the President,” and at least for now, the Department of Justice’s website includes this definition:
The Judiciary Act of 1789 created the Office of the Attorney General which evolved over the years into the head of the Department of Justice and chief law enforcement officer of
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You Get A Conflict! And You Get A Conflict! Everybody Gets a Conflict!
This blog was launched in October, 2019, during Trump I, and soon thereafter I wrote an entry called, “This Blog Isn’t About Politics, and Other Lies We Tell.” I started blogging, intending to focus on disciplinary decisions, new rules, bar opinions, and so forth, with a healthy dose of snark. (To be fair, in October 2019 I also needed to get the buy-in of my employer, and they didn’t want this blog to be about politics either.)
Then-current events
Continue Reading You Get A Conflict! And You Get A Conflict! Everybody Gets a Conflict!
Are They Buying What You’re Selling?
I’m one of those people who, if I have a 1 pm and it is 12:40, typically cannot do anything productive with those 20 minutes. Today, that meant I spent some quality time on social media.
The algorithm served me an ad for some conference on “family law acquisition.” I guess the ad did a little bit of its job, in that it caught my attention, and, my 1 pm call ended up getting pushed to 1:20 so I
Continue Reading Are They Buying What You’re Selling?
Daddy Sang Bass, Mama Sang Ethics
If any of you are in need of 2.5-3 on-demand ethics CLE hours (depending on how your state counts time), or are curious about what happens when people who are not me* try to make ethics CLE fun, Cleveland-based Squire Patton Boggs has created a free long-form ethics CLE musical. (Hey, I run a legal ethics snark blog, and wrote a State Bar ethics article based on an REM earworm, I’m not judging.)
The program can be viewed
Continue Reading Daddy Sang Bass, Mama Sang Ethics
Quick Hits from Elsewhere
I’m working on some longer pieces and on my actual job, so for now, a few quick hits:
- Federal courts: Something troubling, which I would like to address in a longer form when I have some time, is this judicial disciplinary order against Senior Judge Michael A. Ponsor of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Back in May, he wrote an opinion piece (paywalled) in the New York Times that criticized the flying of upside-down American
Should strangers get to file grievances? Arizona says ‘maybe, but’
Some interesting (if you are me) news came out of Arizona this week: Its Supreme Court approved a rule change limiting the ability of people not directly involved in, or who do not have first-hand knowledge of, a particular matter to pursue ethics complaints.
Under the revision to Arizona Supreme Court Rule 53, clients of the lawyer, judges who learned of the conduct through their judicial role, and others with “direct and specific first-hand knowledge of the conduct
Continue Reading Should strangers get to file grievances? Arizona says ‘maybe, but’
This Thing Is On, I Promise
So the thing about having an elections practice in a swing state is that one day you’re writing about bad news that can’t wait and the next day it’s November and everything has waited. I’m still not quite up for air, but I am getting there.
I hope to get back to posting more regularly now that we’re in an “off year” (whatever that means), but in the meantime, this blog turned five on October 24. I hope it
Continue Reading This Thing Is On, I Promise
If My Blog Actually Got Comments, This Would Be A Cautionary Tale
As reported by Above the Law and the Legal Profession Blog, a Colorado lawyer received a 60-day suspension, stayed if he successfully completes a two-year probationary period, for posing as a judge and a former deputy district attorney in blog comments submitted to a moderator.
The stipulated decision (and I suppose I should include a warning that there is uncensored profanity in the decision) was brief, and notes a violation of Colorado Rule 8.4(c), which, like its
Continue Reading If My Blog Actually Got Comments, This Would Be A Cautionary Tale
When Bad News Can’t Wait
I’ve spent the last day-plus at another engaging Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) conference, and just like last year at this same conference, and just like when I was on vacation last year, I got some big news from the courts.
Some of this exciting and completely ill-timed news has been good. And some of it, well, not so much. I was on a Washington, DC metro bus last year and decided to use the downtime
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Georgia On My Mind
Hi, everyone. At long last, some original (if not exactly breaking) content. But I’ve gotten enough questions to pivot from my other busyness and try to answer (even though the answer keeps changing as I write this)—what the hell is going on in Atlanta?
(No, not this Atlanta matter.)
Earlier this week, Brian Steel, a defense lawyer for rapper Young Thug (who has been on trial for more than a year on racketeering and gang charges, see this
Continue Reading Georgia On My Mind
That Time I Turned An Earworm Into A Column
At risk of this blog turning into a Wisconsin Lawyer repository (as original-to-the-bog content has been…well, mostly missing), I present for your consideration “Ethics Song ‘89,” my latest contribution to the State Bar journal.
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When “Revocation” isn’t Revocation
Hi, everyone. It’s been a minute. It may be another minute, or several, before I write again, or it could be tomorrow. (Remember when I launched this blog in 2019 and I thought I would be writing weekly or more and then a few months later everything went sideways? Good times.)
I write to revisit a topic I wrote about a couple of years ago—the fact that Wisconsin does not have true, lifetime “disbarment.” My position hasn’t changed since
Continue Reading When “Revocation” isn’t Revocation