A federal judge has held that Pennsylvania’s Rule 8.4(g),¹  which subjects lawyers to professional discipline for engaging in discriminatory conduct, violates both the free speech clause of the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Greenberg v. Goodrich, No. 20-03822, 2022 WL 874953 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 24, 2022). The court’s reasoning raises questions about the constitutionality of many other states’ versions of Rule 8.4(g), including Maryland’s Rule 19-308.4(e),²  which is arguably more intrusive on speech than the Pennsylvania rule.

• Legal Ethics
• First Amendment

At first glance, TikTok might not have obvious utility to the working professional. After all, its pandemic-era popularity seems to be the product of Zoom-schooled and homebound Gen Zers who flocked to the app as a new pastime and socialization tool. But over time, TikTok’s endless stream of short videos evolved to attract a variety of professionals seeking to market themselves and educate the public in a new format. 

• Legal Ethics
• Legal Marketing
• Social Media
• Attorney Advertising

Many ethics attorneys were intrigued by media reports of a complaint filed in February by Elliott Greenleaf, P.C. against four firm shareholder-attorneys and a paralegal who left the firm’s Wilmington office to join Armstrong Teasdale LLP. The complaint alleged that the defendants made secret plans to depart and “secretly copied and transferred out of the Firm certain client files, client correspondence, and Firm work product,” and “destroyed and shredded Firm files.” That was only one side of the story, of course. Hearing nothing about the other side, we checked the docket to see if the case had quickly settled, as many similar cases do. It turns out that the case is very active, and it continues to raise issues of interest to practitioners in this area. 

• Legal Ethics

Maryland is harsh on lawyers who commit dishonest acts. Since Attorney Grievance Commission v. Vanderlinde, 773 A.2d 463 (Md. 2001), the Court of Appeals has stated many times that the presumptive sanction for dishonest acts is disbarment. To oversimplify, the Court reasons that lawyers who commit dishonest acts are dishonest lawyers and therefore cannot be entrusted with client matters.

• Legal Ethics

In October 2019, the Maryland State Bar Association’s Committee on Ethics published an opinion discussing a Maryland attorney’s duty to report the unauthorized practice of law by a non-Maryland attorney. A footnote to the opinion states:

It is worth noting that other jurisdictions have self-reporting requirements for licensed attorneys who are disciplined for violations of rules of professional conduct in other jurisdictions. See, Rule 8.3 of the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct. Maryland does not impose a similar obligation on its attorneys.

• Legal Ethics