The drug trade and globalization has led to more dirty money flowing into the U.S. and lawyers unwittingly taking part in money laundering. Timothy Dunfey will teach you the risks & red flags of money laundering for attorneys and how to protect yourself, your clients and your law firm from being used as a laundromat.
This CLE program taught by Ritzel Starleigh Ngo will provide legal practitioners with a practical framework of an attorney’s ethical obligations to the law firm and clients in the case of the unforeseen. Using the ABA Model Rules as the foundation for the course, Ritzel speaker will discuss pertinent ethical topics when it comes to transferring ownership of your law firm due to death, disability, disappearance and disbarment.
Philip King highlights common ethical pitfalls for small law attorneys and provides numerous helpful points to spot and avoid these routine practice traps.
Pick up the phone and call your clients, don’t “borrow” money from trust accounts, calendar every key deadline & date – the same fundamental ethics principles still hold true for the 21st century lawyer. That’s because the same traditional ethics issues continue to plague lawyers, leading to countless ethics violations and malpractice lawsuits. Lawyers & Ethics The same traditional legal ethics issues…
Complying with the ethical rules can be a challenge for solo and small firm practitioners. Small firm and solo practitioners normally handle nearly all legal and business aspects of the firm, as they often serve as their own marketing, administration, billing and collections departments. Ethics & the SmallLaw Attorney Small firm and solo attorneys are especially susceptible to ethics violations because they…
Take cases outside of your main practice area. Forget to calendar key dates. Co-mingle client and firm funds. And whatever you don’t, don’t call or email your clients to keep them informed about their cases. This is a blueprint of how NOT to practice law – or what to do if you want to be disbarred or end up on the wrong…
How well do you know the California Rules of Professional Conduct (CRPC), the Business & Professions Code (B&PC) and the State Bar Act? Do you know them well enough to avoid lurking ethical traps? Lawyers & Ethics Unfortunately, many lawyers think that the MPRE is the last time they need to study ethics rules and quite a few attorneys have little or…
If you are like me, one of the first things you do while perusing your state bar journal or website is to flip quickly to the back and the scan the discipline pages. There is something that fascinates me about the stories of those attorneys that were unfortunate enough to get a public censure… or even disbarment in the most extreme circumstances.…
Over the last few decades, the incidence of legal malpractice claims has greatly increased as more clients have begun to sue their attorneys for substandard work. There are many reasons to explain the increased number of legal malpractice claims, and the recent downturn in the economy has only generated more malpractice claims. In order to avoid these lawsuits, attorneys must be extremely…
Do you know one of the best times to prevent malpractice? During the very first meeting with the client – at the outset of the attorney-client relationship. This is a crucial point in the attorney-client relationship that must be used to examine many facets of your representation – from your competence to handle the matter in question to the existence of conflicts…
