Attorney Misconduct
Attorney misconduct is unethical or illegal conduct by an attorney. Attorney misconduct may include: conflict of interest, overbilling, false or misleading statements, knowingly pursuing frivolous and meritless lawsuits, concealing evidence, abandoning a client, failing to disclose all relevant facts, arguing a position while neglecting to disclose prior law which might counter the argument, or having sex with a client. The advent of electronic record-keeping and "e-discovery" has also resulted in a record number of attorney sanctions for a range of abuses from failure to produce to the leaking of sealed documents. In a case highlighting such abuses, in 2007 plaintiffs in a pharmaceutical lawsuit were found to conspire with attorneys and journalists to publicize protected discovery documents defying a judge's protective order. Legal malpractice is a separate concept such as when an attorney fails to adequately, professionally, competently, or zealously represent a client. While ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conflict Of Interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations in which the personal interest of an individual or organization might adversely affect a duty owed to decision-making, make decisions for the benefit of a third party. An "interest" is a commitment, obligation, duty or goal associated with a specific social role or practice. By definition, a "conflict of interest" occurs if, within a particular decision-making context, an individual is subject to two coexisting interests that are in direct conflict with each other ("competing interests"). This is important because under these circumstances, the decision-making process can be disrupted or compromised, affecting the integrity or reliability of the outcomes. Typically, a conflict of interest arises when an individual occupies tw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Overbilling
Overbilling (sometimes spelled as over-billing) is the practice of charging more than is legally or ethically acceptable on an invoice or bill. Overview Contractors and professionals Overbilling in the medical industry can occur when doctors seek to overcharge the government or an insurance company for the actual services provided to their patients or by charging for services not provided. Overbilling in the legal industry can occur with both large institutional clients and smaller, individual companies or personal clients. Overbilling can be an issue in the consultancy and information technology industries as well. Stephen Northcutt, Cynthia Madden, and Cynthia Welti wrote that overbilling occurs more often within larger companies where there is less of a personal connection between employees or contractors and the firm being billed. Institutional overbilling Overbilling can occur when larger institutions or governments create errors in their calculations of how much various indi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable remedy of the "interdict". "When a court employs the extraordinary remedy of injunction, it directs the conduct of a party, and does so with the backing of its full coercive powers."'' Nken v. Holder''556 U.S. 418, 428 (2009) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties, including possible monetary sanctions and even imprisonment. They can also be charged with contempt of court. Rationale The injunction is an equitable remedy that was created by the English courts of equity. Like other equitable remedies, it has traditionally been given when a wrong cannot be effectively remedied by an award of money damages. (The doctrine that reflects this is the req ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Legal Malpractice
Legal malpractice is the term for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, or breach of contract by a lawyer during the provision of legal services that causes harm to a client. Examples A common example of legal malpractice involves the lawyer's missing a deadline for filing a paper with the court or serving a paper on another party, where that error is fatal to the client's case or causes the client to spend more money to resolve the case than would otherwise have been required. For example, a lawyer may commit malpractice by: * After being retained to file a claim or lawsuit, failing to file a case before the statute of limitations expires. * Failing to respond to potentially dispositive motions filed by the opposing party. * Failing to timely file a notice of appeal. Malpractice may also occur as the result of a breach of the contract pursuant to which the client is represented by the attorney. United States Under U.S. law, in order to rise to an actionable level of negligence ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation of model ethical codes related to the legal profession. As of fiscal year 2017, the ABA had 194,000 dues-paying members, constituting approximately 24.4% of American attorneys. In 1979, half of all lawyers in the U.S. were members of the ABA. In 2016, about one third of the 1.3 million practicing lawyers in the U.S. were included in the ABA membership of 400,000, with figures largely unchanged in 2024. The organization's national headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois, with a branch office in Washington, D.C.. The association is affiliated with the law, legal, and professional research sponsoring organization the American Bar Foundation. History The ABA wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bar Association
A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence.ABA Timeline ABA website, accessed on June 22, 2020, The word bar is derived from the old English/European custom of using a physical railing (bar) to separate the area in which court or legal profession business is done from the viewing area for the general public or students of the law. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their ; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their memb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Industry Self-regulation
Industry self-regulation is the process whereby members of an industry, trade or sector of the economy monitor their own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a third party entity or governmental regulator monitor and enforce those standards. Self-regulation may ease compliance and ownership of standards, but it can also give rise to conflicts of interest. If any organization, such as a corporation or government bureaucracy, is asked to eliminate unethical behavior within their own group, it may be in their interest in the short run to eliminate the appearance of unethical behavior, rather than the behavior itself, by keeping any ethical breaches hidden, instead of exposing and correcting them. An exception occurs when the ethical breach is already known by the public. In that case, it could be in the group's interest to end the ethical problem to which the public has knowledge, but keep remaining breaches hidden. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bates V
Bates may refer to: Places * Bates, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Bates, Illinois. an unincorporated community in Sangamon County * Bates, Michigan, a community in Grand Traverse County * Bates, New York, a hamlet in the town of Ellington in Chautauqua County * Bates, Oregon, unincorporated community in Grant County * Bates County, Missouri, county in Missouri * Bates Island, Biscoe Islands, Antarctica * Bates Island (Massachusetts), Island in Lake Chaubunagungamaug * Bates Point, in Victoria Land, Antarctica * Bates Pond (Carver, Massachusetts), Twenty-acre pond * Bates State Park, in Grant County, Oregon * Bates Township, Michigan, in Iron County People * Bates (surname), a common surname * Bates family, a banking family in the United States and the United Kingdom * Bates Gill (born 1959), American political scientist * Bates Lowry (1923–2004), American art historian Organizations Colleges and universities * Bates College, a liberal arts college founde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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False Advertising
False advertising is the act of publishing, transmitting, distributing or otherwise publicly circulating an advertisement containing a false claim, or statement, made intentionally, or recklessly, to promote the sale of property, goods or services. A false advertisement can be classified as deceptive if the advertiser deliberately misleads the consumer, rather than making an unintentional mistake. A number of governments use regulations or other laws and methods to limit false advertising. Types of deception False advertising can take one of two broad forms: an advertisement may be factually wrong, or intentionally misleading. Both types of false advertising may be presented in a number of ways. Photo manipulation Photo manipulation is a technique often used in the cosmetics field and for weight loss commercials to advertise false (or non-typical) results and give consumers a false impression of a product's capabilities. Photo manipulation can alter the audience's percep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Bar Association Model Rules Of Professional Conduct
The American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC) are a set of rules and commentaries on the ethical and professional responsibilities of members of the legal profession in the United States. Although the MRPC generally is not binding law in and of itself, it is intended to be a ''model'' for state regulators of the legal profession (such as bar associations) to adopt, while leaving room for state-specific adaptations. All fifty states and the District of Columbia have adopted legal ethics rules based at least in part on the MRPC. In almost all U.S. jurisdictions, prospective attorneys seeking admission to a state bar are typically required to demonstrate knowledge of the MRPC by achieving a sufficiently high score on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination. Organization The MRPC is organized into eight major categories of rules (numbered 1 through 8), each of which contains up to 18 individual rules within, numbered using a decimal point ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |