Sexual advances to a client, including sexting, gets a bar beef in NC, from the Legal Profession Blog.

On the ABAJ website: 2nd S.C. Lawyer is Killed in 2 Days; Was His Slaying Also Case-Related?. The first murder was apparently tied to a domestic case.

Update: I somehow got the name of the lawyer wrong, and I was informed by email late last night that I was wrong. The name is deleted, and my apologies to the alive and well Mr. Swerling.

Masturbatory gesture lawyer's contempt sentence reduced to 10 days.

In the Boston Globe today: Lawyer accused of laundering drug money to arrange for client's bail:

Federal prosecutors say that a Massachusetts criminal lawyer and another man laundered $1.7 million in drug money over a four-year period to help defendants make bail.

Attorney Lawrence M. Perlmutter, 50, of Newton, and Secundino Cespedes, 50, of Dorchester have been charged with conspiring to launder drug proceeds and failing to file federal reports on large transactions. Neither Perlmutter nor Cespedes could be reached for comment last night.

According to a federal affidavit in the case, Perlmutter made small cash deposits beginning in 2006 into an account that lawyers use to safeguard client funds, called an Interest on Lawyer’s Trust Account. Perlmutter and Cespedes allegedly converted the money into cashier’s checks to bail out defendants with pending drug cases in Massachusetts courts, the affidavit said. Perlmutter did not represent the defendants.

Because the money was transferred into cashier’s checks, the affidavit said, the defendants’ associates did not have to bring the money to bail commissioners and could hide the fact that the money came from illegal drug activity. The court document said Cespedes and Rafael Benzan, a business owner in Roxbury, acquired the money from drug dealers’ associates.

On Law.com: PA S.Ct. can't decide on scope of work-product privilege:

As the U.S. Supreme Court collects briefs from parties interested in the work-product doctrine debate in Textron v. United States, Pennsylvania's high court couldn't come to an agreement on a similar issue involving attorney-client privilege.

The court issued a per curiam order in Nationwide v. Fleming Friday, upholding a Superior Court ruling that attorney-client privilege only applies to information given to the attorney by the client, not the other way around. There were only four justices to hear the case because Justices Debra M. Todd and Seamus P. McCaffery, having sat on the panel at the Superior Court level, had to recuse themselves. The court was down its seventh judge at the time because of retirements. (link in original)

The second most viewed posting on this website in nearly seven years is 90 days for masturbatory hand gesture to judge affirmed. The Austin Statesman-American reports that he entered jail last night.

Admit it: We've all thought that or worse about judges. Luckily, mere thoughts don't land us in jail. At least not yet.

By the way, NACDL is in Austin in three weeks. Perhaps we should go visit him.

On Law.com from Fulton County Daily Report: Attorney Says Prosecutors Engaged in Vendetta to Ruin Him / Ga. lawyer acquitted of money-laundering and drug conspiracy charges says troubles started with his zealous defense of drug trafficker by R. Robin McDonald:

It was in 2006 that Columbus, Ga., attorney J. Mark Shelnutt first heard from clients that an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Columbus had told them if they needed a lawyer, they better look somewhere else.

The reason they were being steered away, Shelnutt said his clients told him, was because he had become the subject of a criminal investigation by federal law enforcement agents.

In 2006, the veteran criminal defense attorney was defending the accused ringleader of a drug trafficking enterprise who had been arrested the previous year after the largest drug seizure in Columbus' history. On May 4, 2005, federal and local drug agents had seized 220 kilos of cocaine, more than a ton of marijuana and $600,000 in cash and broken up what a federal judge described as "one of the largest drug conspiracies in the city's history."

Shelnutt confronted Columbus DEA agent Stephen T. Ribolla, who he had been told was the source of the investigation rumors. Ribolla denied it. But in a federal hearing last summer, Ribolla acknowledged he had initiated the investigation of Shelnutt although he claimed he was not the source of the alleged leaks.

Business analysts say this rule applies in the service industries, and it applies to lawyers. I've been applying it for years, and telling the clients.

You want it good and fast? It won’t be cheap.

You want it fast and cheap? It won’t be good.

You want it good and cheap? It won’t be fast.

You want all three? Then it will cost you.

I was hired Thursday at 5 p.m. for a post-conviction petition with 72 hours notice that the statute of limitations expired today. I doubled my fee for the petition drafting part, and got it. In advance. They were understanding.

Don't sell yourself short. You have to take a weekend you were planning on doing nothing or something nonlegal, and a client wants to take that away from you, then the client has to pay for the privilege. Doesn't everybody charge extra for emergency work on the weekends? You should.

See Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5 on fees:

(a) A lawyer shall not make an agreement for, charge, or collect an unreasonable fee or an unreasonable amount for expenses. The factors to be considered in determining the reasonableness of a fee include the following:
(1) the time and labor required, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved, and the skill requisite to perform the legal service properly;
(2) the likelihood, if apparent to the client, that the acceptance of the particular employment will preclude other employment by the lawyer;
. . .
(5) the time limitations imposed by the client or by the circumstances;

Government seeks and gets a waiver of attorney-client privilege as to the allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel. United States v. Garcia, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7114 (E.D. Cal. January 8, 2010):

When a petitioner in a habeas corpus action raises a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, he waives the attorney-client privilege as to the matters challenged. See Bittaker v. Woodford, 331 F.3d 715, 718-19 (9th Cir. 2003) ("[A] litigant waives the attorney-client privilege by putting the lawyer's performance at issue during the course of litigation ..."); Osband v. Woodford, 290 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir. 2002). The waiver applies to all information necessary to give the opposing party a fair opportunity to defend. Bittaker, 331 F.3d at 719. If a district court exercises its discretion to allow discovery subject to an attorney-client waiver, it must enter appropriate protective orders clearly delineating the contours of the limited waiver before the commencement of discovery. Id. at 728.

Here, the court finds that movant has waived the attorney-client privilege with regard to any communications between movant and his trial counsel regarding: (1) counsel's decision not to file a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless search of the outdoor marijuana garden; (2) movant's fluency in the English language and ability to comprehend his trial proceedings and assist his trial counsel without the aid of a Spanish/English interpreter; and (3) whether movant's trial counsel advised movant of the alternatives available to him to resolve the criminal charges against him prior to trial. By separate order the court will limit the use of information and materials obtained by respondent as a result of movant's waiver.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

—Clarence Darrow, Closing argument in "Communist Trial," People v. Arthur Person (1920), in Attorney for the Damned, Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom 122 (ed. by Arthur Weinberg, 1957, renewed 1989).