Category: Legal Ethics

Suppose you have a client who is dedicated to making litigation as difficult as possible for plaintiff through every conceivable procedural device whether proper or not; and who instructs you to not only increase the expense of litigation for plaintiff but also to delay, delay, delay?

Your former client, Julius, has been badly injured in a car accident and needs a lawyer. Since personal injury law is not your practice area, you contemplate where to refer Julius. As you open your mail, you note the interest on your student loans is greatly increasing your debt obligations. You ask yourself – what if I collected a referral fee?

A recent State Bar Court discipline opinion underscores that we, lawyers, should take a court’s order seriously — very seriously — at our peril. The facts of the case drive the point.