Bar independence

Judicially Mandated Diversity

31 Oct 2010

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Last month, United States Federal Judge Harold Baer Jr. generated renewed debate about law firm diversity when, in the course of a motion to approve a class action settlement, he ordered the two plaintiff firms to “make every effort” to appoint one female and one minority lawyer to the case.

The background and details are well covered at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog and Law.com.

Simply put, this is an egregious example of judicial overreaching, for at least three reasons.

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By: Franco Tarulli Category: Bar independence, Judges, Judicial conduct Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Duty, ethics, and the abuse of state power

5 Aug 2010

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Two seemingly unrelated articles caught my eye this week, and got me thinking about ethics and the abuse of state power.

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By: Franco Tarulli Category: Bar independence, Conduct, Governance Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In-house counsel with inactive status, and the loss of solicitor-client privilege

6 Jul 2010

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Law.com recently reported that the U.S. Federal Court, Southern District of New York issued a decision in Gucci America Inc. v. Guess? Inc., requiring Gucci to disclose communications between the company and the individual it had promoted to in-house counsel, on the basis that the individual had only inactive bar status with the relevant jurisdiction, and that therefore, he was not licensed to practice law. Magistrate Judge James L. Cott reasoned that as a result of the inactive bar status, attorney-client privilege did not apply to certain communications between Gucci and its in-house counsel.  Therefore, Gucci was required to disclose those communications.

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By: Franco Tarulli Category: Advocacy, Bar independence, Conduct Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Michael Bryant: “Extraordinary” justice?

30 May 2010

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Christie Blatchford from the Globe and Mail suggested recently that perhaps lady justice was peeking out a little from under her blindfold, when Ontario dropped some very serious criminal charges against its former Attorney-General, Michael Bryant.

By now, most Canadian legal-watchers know that Michael Bryant was charged with criminal negligence causing the death of cyclist Darcy Sheppard.

Did he get a free pass?

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By: Franco Tarulli Category: Advocacy, Bar independence, Conduct Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Legal offshore outsourcing: An ethical pandora’s box?

15 Aug 2008

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Gavin Birer posted this intro to legal offshore outsourcing at Slaw.ca.

Most interesting was his assertion that “… [l]awyers … perform qualitative, skill-intensive legal tasks … . By contrast, offshore legal outsourcing vendors typically perform quantitative, ‘lower-skilled’ legal tasks, and serve as a support to their law firm and legal department clients. …”. According to Birer, these tasks include “… document review, document drafting, legal research, due diligence, and much more. …”

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By: Franco Tarulli Category: Bar independence, Conduct, Legal fees Tags: , , , , , ,
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