Read posts by Topic
Preventing Fee Problems: A Preventative Approach
May 20, 2015Fee disputes with clients lead to a number of problems. Legal malpractice claims are often filed when clients are dissatisfied with fees. If a lawyer tries to collect fees from an unwilling client, the client will often counterclaim for malpractice. Legal malpractice is a mandatory counterclaim in a fee suit. Read the full post
Marking Up: When Can You Do It, And How?
May 20, 2015Texas Ethics Opinion No. 577, issued in March 2007 and published in the October 2007 Texas Bar Journal, addresses when and how a law firm can charge a client more for an attorney’s services than it pays the attorney. The opinion notes that Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 1.04(f) Read the full post
The Importance of Fee Issues
May 20, 2015Percentage of Americans who agree that lawyers are more interested in making money than in serving their clients: 69% Public Perception of Lawyers: Consumer Research Findings, Section of Litigation, American Bar Association 2002, p. 7, available online at http://www.abanet.org/litigation/lawyers/publicperceptions.pdf. THE IMPORTANCE OF FEE ISSUES Fee issues are commonly intertwined with legal Read the full post
Recent Texas Ethics Opinions On Contingent Fees, Non-Refundable Retainers
May 20, 2015By Jett Hanna Two recent Texas Ethics Opinions from the Professional Ethics Committee for the State Bar of Texas may change how lawyers structure contingent fee agreements and non-refundable retainers. In Opinion 610, the opinion committee determined that it is unethical for lawyers to retain a security interest in a Read the full post
When Twice Is Not Nice: Defending Your Own Work
May 20, 2015Repeat clients are usually appreciated, but in some situations you may want to reconsider. If the work you are called upon to perform for a prior client involves litigating the results of your prior work, a potential for conflict between you and your client may exist. One of the options Read the full post
What is a Conflict?
May 20, 2015The following is a brief, limited review of the law of conflicts of interest in Texas. Should you have a question about a particular situation, please review applicable rules and case law. All rules cited below are the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct. Conflicts between current clients (simultaneous representation). An Read the full post
Conflict Avoidance Systems
May 20, 2015Conflicts of interest are the “silent killers” of legal malpractice. A 1999 ABA study of legal malpractice claims indicates that conflict of interest was the primary alleged error in only 5.12% of legal malpractice claims. TLIE’s statistics indicate, however, that conflicts often are alleged in conjunction with other errors. In Read the full post
Texas Ethics Opinion 557: Clients Considering Malpractice Claims Against You
May 20, 2015The Professional Ethics Opinions Committee for the State Bar of Texas recently adopted an opinion addressing the ethical obligations and options for a lawyer whose client is actively considering a legal malpractice claim. The opinion is available in the September issue of the Texas Bar Journal at page 750. The Read the full post
Legal Research of Conflicts of Interest
May 20, 2015Most lawyers know that the rules of ethics are a critical component of conflicts research. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct can be found in a number of places. In Vernon’s, the rules appear following Chapter 81 of the Government Code, with annotations to cases and Texas ethical opinions. Read the full post
The Truth About Conflict Waivers
May 20, 2015The term “conflict waiver” enters the vocabulary of many lawyers very early in their career. There is often a form for such waivers developed by other lawyers in the firm, or gleaned from CLE presentations or form books. Unfortunately, conflict waivers are not well understood by much of the profession. Read the full post