Recently in Ethics Category

Dumb comments about rape have been hot news this year.

Two of the biggest news stories leading up to the November elections involved U.S. Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock making ill-informed, ill-advised statements about rape. Both men lost their elections, NBCNews reports.

Thursday, another dumb rape comment began making the rounds on the Internet. This one was from Orange County Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson. But he actually made the statement four years ago.

Bar exam applicants who have disabilities can request special accommodations during the exam. Depending on the nature of the disability, "accommodations may include such things as assistants (i.e., readers or personal healthcare assistants), wheelchair access, permission to dictate to a typist or tape recorder, customized timing, separate testing room, customized examination materials (i.e., Braille, large print, etc.), extended testing days and permission to bring and use specific items or medical aids.

It's not a perfect system. You could fake a disability for the extra time on the test. You may even get away with it.

But if you get caught, you'll lose your license.

Earlier this month, the California Supreme Court announced that the state's justices had unanimously adopted amendments to the California Code of Judicial Ethics based upon the recommendations of the court's Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Ethics.

The changes take effect January 1, 2013.

We try really hard not to fly during peak travel periods. Airports are never fun — other than San Francisco’s Terminal 2, which has both Pinkberry and a yoga room — but airports are particularly miserable during the winters. Sometimes, tempers flare and people lose it during holiday travel.

For example…

On Christmas Eve in 2010, former Los Angeles deputy city attorney Angela West went on a violent rampage with janitorial supplies at San Francisco International Airport, wielding a three-foot metal pole to smash merchandise, milk containers and food items at a Peet’s Coffee & Tea kiosk.

Many lawyers are turning to social media and it’s not always clear what the rules are.

The State Bar Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct issued a proposed ethics opinion on how California attorneys should conduct themselves when using social media.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed a brief with the California Supreme Court last week, supporting Sergio Garcia’s case to be admitted to the California Bar, reports CBS News.

California’s Latino state legislators have also spoken out in support of Garcia, reports the Los Angeles Times. The California Legislative Caucus submitted a brief to the court in support of Garcia.

The California Supreme Court takes attorney discipline seriously.

Last week, the state's highest court returned 24 attorney discipline cases to the State Bar Court, after determining that proposed disciplinary actions were too lenient, reports the ABA Journal.

Lawyers are good with words, so it's easy for us to find ways of blaming other people for our mistakes. A lawyer, for example, never "drinks too much," he is merely "over-served."

Northern California attorney Tim Pori, however, was not as successful with blame-shifting in front of Superior Court Judge Carrie Panetta during a recent court appearance. (For what it's worth, he actually accepted responsibility.) Judge Panetta, clearly irked that Pori could not begin a murder trial last week due to a scheduling overlap, found Pori in contempt of court, sentenced him to five days in jail, and ordered him to pay a $2,500 fine.

We usually write our own headlines. Some are straightforward. Some are funny. (At least we hope they’re funny). Every once in a while, however, a court will hand us such a gem that we decide to use a direct quote in a headline.

That’s what happened today. (Thanks, Second Appellate District!)

So how far must an attorney go to be deemed a “vexatious litigant” engaged in “grievously unethical conduct?” We’ll give you a hint: The answer involves puppet counsel.

California’s Fourth Appellate District Court said bah-humbug to a plaintiff’s motion for default judgment on Wednesday, finding that the plaintiff’s allegations had not sufficiently supported the judgment he sought.

The Fourth Appellate District overturned a trial court’s default judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Respondent Gil Kim, finding that - despite the defendants’ failure to respond - Kim had not sufficiently pleaded factual allegations to support judgment in his favor.

After disposing of its business with Kim, the court slapped his attorney, Timothy Donahue, with $10,000 in attorney sanctions.