I remember a few years back when lawyers were discussing the ethics of a partner having an associate do the partner's work and then the partner signed his/her name to it. There was no consensus.
Now we have LawClerk. Things in the legal profession keep getting better and better!
And then there are those who complain that Nevada has too many attorneys. LawClerk will help with that also. THANK YOU SO MUCH Nevada Bar!!!
So you've never used an associate to prepare a pleading, discovery, discovery responses, letter, a research memo, that you then reviewed, edited, signed and filed with the court or given to the client? Or a paralegal or assistant to review and summarize medical records or documents and then used information from that summary to help with a deposition or pleading?
I've never seen those complaints, that's odd. Its routine for associates to prepare briefs and the partners to sign. I have seen comments on here where associates did the work and the partner sliced their time and then billed the time themselves. That's fraud my friends – but it happens more often than one might think.
I looked at that lawclerk website. The entire concept of having some random attorney do contract work is ridiculous. In an act of desperation, okay, fine. But otherwise, that is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And if a client finds out that the law firm he/she hired is pawning work off on a contract attorney, the client would go nuts. There's a quality issue. And there must be ethical issue here too.
I one hundred percent agree with 3:11. So now the State Bar is okay with and promoting violating the RPC. Welcome to the wild wild west of the State Bar of NV.
So I hire an attorney thinking that this attorney (or at least an attorney trained within his/her law firm) is preparing my legal briefs. Meanwhile, they're pawning it off to some random attorney who they don't know personally. I lose in court. I then find out what they did. I'm pissed. How is this not malpractice per se and a major ethical violation. Maybe written disclosures would work. But if I'm their client, I'm not signing anything allowing them to pawn my work off to a match.com of contract lawyers! I agree with 3:11 and 12:00.
I think its clear that 12:24 is not an attorney. It is common practice to farm out work to associates, law clerks etc. This is good for the client, as they pay lower bills than if the higher paid attorney does it. And lets be real, much of the time the Court's don't look at the fine details of the pleadings, its just whether it is good enough. This is especially true on pro forma motions.
While it is problematic to bill the client for work not performed, this is separate and apart from whether it is ethical to farm out work. There is no issue with "training". If I hire an associate, and on day one they write a brief i review, I have no "training" in this attorney.
The biggest issue for me is confidential information. If confidential information is conveyed to the other attorney, how is this protected? Does it create conflicts of interest for future representation?
Quality, oversight, etc are all non-issues that have long ago been resolved.
In theory, isn't this much the same as an associate writing a brief, which the partner then reviews and signs? The attorney who is using the contract attorney is the one who has to sign the final product, and would be expected to review the work before doing so, no?
I get that in practice, many of these attorneys are just going to rubber-stamp the contract work, but that's not really the website's fault, is it?
Your argument has zero effect on me when you start saying that people are not attorneys when they disagree with you. People should be allowed to post on here without the insults.
I can't even imagine a scenario where I would farm out legal work to someone who I found online through a website full of contract attorneys looking for work.
Guest
Anonymous
March 6, 2020 5:20 pm
How dare you complain about your State Bar and your NSC who are destroying small firms in this State, trying to mess with your livelihood? I have never seen anything like it. I know Pickering is not getting my vote in this election.
How does the State Bar partnering with Law Clerk destroy small firms? I'm a solo practitioner, and I've used Law Clerk to help with time-consuming research, which actually helped me to serve my clients better. I get people want to complain about the Bar and other things I feel have been targeted at small firms, but I just don't get this argument as it applies to Law Clerk.
I don't think 9:50 is just talking about law clerk as to the Bar and NSC. As for law clerk, I have no interest I wanted to know who I am dealing with when assisting me in my legal work for my clients.
Guest
Anonymous
March 6, 2020 5:24 pm
Coming soon to Nevada. Oregon lawyer skips out on strip club tab, tries to escape via train tunnel: cops
Probably 80% or better chance Bishop will proceed. The fact that al attendees will transport themselves via vehicle, and that no air flights(and thus no potential exposure to infected passengers) are available to or from there is one factor.
Another reason(it is likely to proceed) is that this is the defining Family Law event each year, good for 10 or 12 credits, and there is so much money and everything tied up and staked on it. Even if individuals could possibly cancel in time for refunds on hotel rooms, if the State Bar cancels the event they will presumably not recoup the thousands they have spent renting the fir grounds, where the seminar is conducted, etc.
So, unless reported cases of the virus spring up in the tiny enclave of Bishop, I bet 4 to 1 that it proceeds.
But I may be underestimating the panic level involved in this whole mess. If I am, then the odds dramatically shift.
11:31 – The "tiny enclave of Bishop" that sits at the foot of Mamount Mtn. Ski Resort, drawing 1.3 million visitors a year? Those visitors from across the U.S. and world? That Bishop?
That shitty bar who overcharges you for dues and holds bar meetings in places no one wants to go to, like Bishop.
Guest
Anonymous
March 6, 2020 5:56 pm
9:08–the dynamic you mention, an associate writing a brief but a partner in the firm signs the brief and claims it as his/hers, is as old as the hills and, by itself, raises no built-in ethical quandaries.
In fact, that's how most firms operate, and always have. Often partners don't even review or proof-read the material. And that is either based on being too lazy and arrogant, claiming to be far too busy, or perhaps simply having implicit confidence in the work product generated by the associate.
I've never been a huge fan of such practice, but it is prevalent. And the only legitimate ethical questions it raises, IMO, is that the partner is ultimately responsible for the brief they signed. So if they are called on the carpet by the judge concerning some false and inaccurate information in the brief or, worse yet, something in the nature of a Rule 11 violation, they can't avoid culpability by blaming it on their associate who wrote the brief(although most of us have seen people who attempt such defense, mitigation, or deflection).
Now, that all said, there are obvious ethical implications if the brief signed by the partner was not even prepared by an associate, but was instead fully prepared by a paralegal or secretary. But usually it is never really determined or revealed that such was the situation. Most lawyers will not admit, when called on the carpet about false information in a brief, to then claim it was fully prepared by someone not licensed to practice, and that all the partner did was to blindly sign it without reviewing it or modifying any of it.
At least that is my understanding on such matters. Hopefully others will weigh in with their view of the ethics of the situation. I think 9:08 raises an interesting point.
Good points, but at least in the 9:08 scenario the associates are licensed in NV. I suppose one could select only NV licensed attys to produce work. That being said, the ethical questions remain and with the NV Bar supporting (almost recommending?) LawClerk, any/all related ethical questions will NEVER be answered.
~15 years ago, during my 2nd and 3rd year of law school (at Boyd), I worked ~20hrs/week (during school, 40hrs/week during breaks) at a solo attorney's office as a law clerk, and prepared motions, briefs, complaints, discovery requests & responses, etc, for the attorney who reviewed them, had me revise them (or he would revise them), and then he would sign them for either myself or the paralegal to file for him. How is that any different if the attorney at 'Law Clerk' (or whatever their name is) does it and that attorney is not licensed in Nevada?
Yeah. Someone please explain the dilema here. If the garbageman prepares a brief, and a Nevada attorney signs it, it's the attorney's brief. How this is billed might raise issues but the mere fact it was written by a nonlawyer means nothing so long as a lawyer signs off on it.
There are also many large firms using associates from other offices, attorneys who have "non-pro hac'd counsel" drafting things, and small firms using contract labor where the work is occurring outside of Nevada by non-Nevada attorneys. In fact, I suspect that a lot of the legal work in the community is being drafted by paralegals with little to no review from signing counsel.
12:43–I think you are right on point,and 9:56 would agree with you as well. A couple posters are complicating this issue a bit beyond what is merited.
As long as the attorney signs it, and thus adopts it as his/her own brief, it doesn't matter if it was prepared by Gomer Pyle, or Barney Fife, or Herman Munster or Gilligan(to give a shout out to 60's sitcoms).
If the brief includes misrepresentations or other inappropriate content, or even violates Rule 11 as the one poster suggested, the buck stops with the attorney who signed it. He cannot deflect his ethical responsibility by saying he entrusted Herman Munster to write the brief.
Whoever signs it from this Law Clerk organization, it is a red herring as to whether that person is actually a lawyer or not. The key is that a licensed Nevada attorney must sign the brief.
It's presumed that an attorney will do a better job at writing documents to be filed with the court than a pro se individual will; and the court gives a LOT (too much I think) of slack to a pro se person, so having that person get both an advantage of having an attorney ghost write their document and given too much slack if there are problems with it, is a problem to me if I'm expected to follow all the rules in the few instances I have a pro se individual on the other side.
Guest
Anonymous
March 6, 2020 9:20 pm
When I was an associate I often drafted motions that partners would review and sign. Now that I’m a partner, I have associates draft motions that I review and sign. I always review, and often revise, motions that I sign. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Billing for someone else’s work on the other hand is not only fraud, it’s a horrible business practice. I’d never work for anyone who cut my billing in order to bill my work themselves, and I’d never expect anyone working for me to accept such a practice.
Guest
Anonymous
March 7, 2020 1:06 am
Woohoo! Now the Eglets get to look out their back windows from their palace in Queensridge at hopefully? all the new multi-family/multi level affordable housing to offset the cost of housing the downtown homeless in the City Jail that used to beg from all the Eglet clients picking up their six figure settlement checks on 7th Street!
No! I'm not ID counsel and Yes! All Lawyers are Losers!
Now go and enjoy your self destructive weekend with coke and booze!
I remember a few years back when lawyers were discussing the ethics of a partner having an associate do the partner's work and then the partner signed his/her name to it. There was no consensus.
Now we have LawClerk. Things in the legal profession keep getting better and better!
And then there are those who complain that Nevada has too many attorneys. LawClerk will help with that also. THANK YOU SO MUCH Nevada Bar!!!
So you've never used an associate to prepare a pleading, discovery, discovery responses, letter, a research memo, that you then reviewed, edited, signed and filed with the court or given to the client? Or a paralegal or assistant to review and summarize medical records or documents and then used information from that summary to help with a deposition or pleading?
I've never seen those complaints, that's odd. Its routine for associates to prepare briefs and the partners to sign. I have seen comments on here where associates did the work and the partner sliced their time and then billed the time themselves. That's fraud my friends – but it happens more often than one might think.
I looked at that lawclerk website. The entire concept of having some random attorney do contract work is ridiculous. In an act of desperation, okay, fine. But otherwise, that is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And if a client finds out that the law firm he/she hired is pawning work off on a contract attorney, the client would go nuts. There's a quality issue. And there must be ethical issue here too.
I one hundred percent agree with 3:11. So now the State Bar is okay with and promoting violating the RPC. Welcome to the wild wild west of the State Bar of NV.
So I hire an attorney thinking that this attorney (or at least an attorney trained within his/her law firm) is preparing my legal briefs. Meanwhile, they're pawning it off to some random attorney who they don't know personally. I lose in court. I then find out what they did. I'm pissed. How is this not malpractice per se and a major ethical violation. Maybe written disclosures would work. But if I'm their client, I'm not signing anything allowing them to pawn my work off to a match.com of contract lawyers! I agree with 3:11 and 12:00.
I think its clear that 12:24 is not an attorney. It is common practice to farm out work to associates, law clerks etc. This is good for the client, as they pay lower bills than if the higher paid attorney does it. And lets be real, much of the time the Court's don't look at the fine details of the pleadings, its just whether it is good enough. This is especially true on pro forma motions.
While it is problematic to bill the client for work not performed, this is separate and apart from whether it is ethical to farm out work. There is no issue with "training". If I hire an associate, and on day one they write a brief i review, I have no "training" in this attorney.
The biggest issue for me is confidential information. If confidential information is conveyed to the other attorney, how is this protected? Does it create conflicts of interest for future representation?
Quality, oversight, etc are all non-issues that have long ago been resolved.
In theory, isn't this much the same as an associate writing a brief, which the partner then reviews and signs? The attorney who is using the contract attorney is the one who has to sign the final product, and would be expected to review the work before doing so, no?
I get that in practice, many of these attorneys are just going to rubber-stamp the contract work, but that's not really the website's fault, is it?
Your argument has zero effect on me when you start saying that people are not attorneys when they disagree with you. People should be allowed to post on here without the insults.
I can't even imagine a scenario where I would farm out legal work to someone who I found online through a website full of contract attorneys looking for work.
How dare you complain about your State Bar and your NSC who are destroying small firms in this State, trying to mess with your livelihood? I have never seen anything like it. I know Pickering is not getting my vote in this election.
How does the State Bar partnering with Law Clerk destroy small firms? I'm a solo practitioner, and I've used Law Clerk to help with time-consuming research, which actually helped me to serve my clients better. I get people want to complain about the Bar and other things I feel have been targeted at small firms, but I just don't get this argument as it applies to Law Clerk.
I don't think 9:50 is just talking about law clerk as to the Bar and NSC. As for law clerk, I have no interest I wanted to know who I am dealing with when assisting me in my legal work for my clients.
Coming soon to Nevada. Oregon lawyer skips out on strip club tab, tries to escape via train tunnel: cops
https://nypost.com/2020/03/03/oregon-lawyer-skips-out-on-strip-club-tab-leads-cops-on-foot-chase/
What is the over/under that the Family Law Conference in Bishop will go forward next week?
Probably 80% or better chance Bishop will proceed. The fact that al attendees will transport themselves via vehicle, and that no air flights(and thus no potential exposure to infected passengers) are available to or from there is one factor.
Another reason(it is likely to proceed) is that this is the defining Family Law event each year, good for 10 or 12 credits, and there is so much money and everything tied up and staked on it. Even if individuals could possibly cancel in time for refunds on hotel rooms, if the State Bar cancels the event they will presumably not recoup the thousands they have spent renting the fir grounds, where the seminar is conducted, etc.
So, unless reported cases of the virus spring up in the tiny enclave of Bishop, I bet 4 to 1 that it proceeds.
But I may be underestimating the panic level involved in this whole mess. If I am, then the odds dramatically shift.
11:31 – The "tiny enclave of Bishop" that sits at the foot of Mamount Mtn. Ski Resort, drawing 1.3 million visitors a year? Those visitors from across the U.S. and world? That Bishop?
That shitty bar who overcharges you for dues and holds bar meetings in places no one wants to go to, like Bishop.
9:08–the dynamic you mention, an associate writing a brief but a partner in the firm signs the brief and claims it as his/hers, is as old as the hills and, by itself, raises no built-in ethical quandaries.
In fact, that's how most firms operate, and always have. Often partners don't even review or proof-read the material. And that is either based on being too lazy and arrogant, claiming to be far too busy, or perhaps simply having implicit confidence in the work product generated by the associate.
I've never been a huge fan of such practice, but it is prevalent. And the only legitimate ethical questions it raises, IMO, is that the partner is ultimately responsible for the brief they signed. So if they are called on the carpet by the judge concerning some false and inaccurate information in the brief or, worse yet, something in the nature of a Rule 11 violation, they can't avoid culpability by blaming it on their associate who wrote the brief(although most of us have seen people who attempt such defense, mitigation, or deflection).
Now, that all said, there are obvious ethical implications if the brief signed by the partner was not even prepared by an associate, but was instead fully prepared by a paralegal or secretary. But usually it is never really determined or revealed that such was the situation. Most lawyers will not admit, when called on the carpet about false information in a brief, to then claim it was fully prepared by someone not licensed to practice, and that all the partner did was to blindly sign it without reviewing it or modifying any of it.
At least that is my understanding on such matters. Hopefully others will weigh in with their view of the ethics of the situation. I think 9:08 raises an interesting point.
Good points, but at least in the 9:08 scenario the associates are licensed in NV. I suppose one could select only NV licensed attys to produce work. That being said, the ethical questions remain and with the NV Bar supporting (almost recommending?) LawClerk, any/all related ethical questions will NEVER be answered.
~15 years ago, during my 2nd and 3rd year of law school (at Boyd), I worked ~20hrs/week (during school, 40hrs/week during breaks) at a solo attorney's office as a law clerk, and prepared motions, briefs, complaints, discovery requests & responses, etc, for the attorney who reviewed them, had me revise them (or he would revise them), and then he would sign them for either myself or the paralegal to file for him. How is that any different if the attorney at 'Law Clerk' (or whatever their name is) does it and that attorney is not licensed in Nevada?
Yeah. Someone please explain the dilema here. If the garbageman prepares a brief, and a Nevada attorney signs it, it's the attorney's brief. How this is billed might raise issues but the mere fact it was written by a nonlawyer means nothing so long as a lawyer signs off on it.
There are also many large firms using associates from other offices, attorneys who have "non-pro hac'd counsel" drafting things, and small firms using contract labor where the work is occurring outside of Nevada by non-Nevada attorneys. In fact, I suspect that a lot of the legal work in the community is being drafted by paralegals with little to no review from signing counsel.
12:43–I think you are right on point,and 9:56 would agree with you as well. A couple posters are complicating this issue a bit beyond what is merited.
As long as the attorney signs it, and thus adopts it as his/her own brief, it doesn't matter if it was prepared by Gomer Pyle, or Barney Fife, or Herman Munster or Gilligan(to give a shout out to 60's sitcoms).
If the brief includes misrepresentations or other inappropriate content, or even violates Rule 11 as the one poster suggested, the buck stops with the attorney who signed it. He cannot deflect his ethical responsibility by saying he entrusted Herman Munster to write the brief.
Whoever signs it from this Law Clerk organization, it is a red herring as to whether that person is actually a lawyer or not. The key is that a licensed Nevada attorney must sign the brief.
And yet, there is a rule that a lawyer can't ghost write something and have a pro se individual sign off on it as their own. Weird right?
It's presumed that an attorney will do a better job at writing documents to be filed with the court than a pro se individual will; and the court gives a LOT (too much I think) of slack to a pro se person, so having that person get both an advantage of having an attorney ghost write their document and given too much slack if there are problems with it, is a problem to me if I'm expected to follow all the rules in the few instances I have a pro se individual on the other side.
When I was an associate I often drafted motions that partners would review and sign. Now that I’m a partner, I have associates draft motions that I review and sign. I always review, and often revise, motions that I sign. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Billing for someone else’s work on the other hand is not only fraud, it’s a horrible business practice. I’d never work for anyone who cut my billing in order to bill my work themselves, and I’d never expect anyone working for me to accept such a practice.
Woohoo! Now the Eglets get to look out their back windows from their palace in Queensridge at hopefully? all the new multi-family/multi level affordable housing to offset the cost of housing the downtown homeless in the City Jail that used to beg from all the Eglet clients picking up their six figure settlement checks on 7th Street!
No! I'm not ID counsel and Yes! All Lawyers are Losers!
Now go and enjoy your self destructive weekend with coke and booze!
Mmmm….. coke and booze.
You had me at….coke and booze.