Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a lawyer in California, filed suit challenging California’s procedures for attorney discipline. Plaintiff alleged that California violated her constitutional rights by not providing her meaningful judicial review in a fee dispute between herself and a client, and that the rules governing the California State Bar’s disciplinary procedures are facially unconstitutional. The court agreed with the State Bar that plaintiff's as-applied challenges are barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. However, the court concluded that the State Bar misreads this Court’s statute-of-limitations decision in Action Apartment Ass’n, Inc. v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, which only applies to facial challenges involving property rights. In this case, plaintiff's facial claims are not time-barred because she filed her claim well within the two-year statute of limitations. On the merits, the court concluded that plaintiff's facial claims based on California’s state constitution fail because they have already been rejected by the Supreme Court of California. The court concluded that, contrary to plaintiff's contentions, People v. Kelly did not overrule In re Rose, which stated that it is fundamental that state courts be left free and unfettered by the federal courts in interpreting their state constitutions. Plaintiff's First Amendment claims are unsupported because the court was aware of no case holding that the First Amendment provides a freestanding right for an individual to have a state court hear her dispute in the absence of some asserted state or federal cause of action, statutory or judge-made. Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection claims also fail where California's change in its attorney discipline procedures are not so significant as to create a due process violation. While the regulation of lawyers in California is unlike California’s regulation of any other professionals, plaintiff has not demonstrated that this regulatory scheme violates Equal Protection. California’s decision to regulate lawyers principally via a judicially supervised administrative body attached to the State Bar of California, the organization of all state-licensed lawyers, is rational and so constitutional. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Scheer v. Kelly" on Justia Law

In 2004, Bianchi was elected as McHenry County, Illinois State’s Attorney and embarked on reforms. In 2006, a secretary resigned and took sensitive documents with her. Working with an Assistant State’s Attorney, whom Bianchi had demoted, the secretary delivered the documents to the media and to Bianchi’s opponent in the next election. Bianchi learned of the theft and persuaded a judge to appoint a special prosecutor. The secretary was charged with several felonies and eventually pleaded guilty to computer tampering. Bianchi’s opponent and other political enemies obtained the appointment of another special prosecutor, to investigate Bianchi. A grand jury was convened. Bianchi and three colleagues were indicted on multiple counts of official misconduct. All were acquitted. Bianchi and his colleagues sought damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the court-appointed special prosecutor (Tonigan), the court-appointed assistant special prosecutor (McQueen) and Quest, a firm of private investigators hired by the special prosecutors, and its investigators. They claimed that the defendants fabricated evidence and withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of the Due Process Clause and Fourth Amendment and political retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. Tonigan settled. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal as to McQueen and the investigators, holding that absolute prosecutorial immunity and qualified immunity foreclose the federal constitutional claims. View "Bianchi v. McQueen" on Justia Law

In 2004, Bianchi was elected as McHenry County, Illinois State’s Attorney and embarked on reforms. In 2006, a secretary resigned and took sensitive documents with her. Working with an Assistant State’s Attorney, whom Bianchi had demoted, the secretary delivered the documents to the media and to Bianchi’s opponent in the next election. Bianchi learned of the theft and persuaded a judge to appoint a special prosecutor. The secretary was charged with several felonies and eventually pleaded guilty to computer tampering. Bianchi’s opponent and other political enemies obtained the appointment of another special prosecutor, to investigate Bianchi. A grand jury was convened. Bianchi and three colleagues were indicted on multiple counts of official misconduct. All were acquitted. Bianchi and his colleagues sought damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the court-appointed special prosecutor (Tonigan), the court-appointed assistant special prosecutor (McQueen) and Quest, a firm of private investigators hired by the special prosecutors, and its investigators. They claimed that the defendants fabricated evidence and withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of the Due Process Clause and Fourth Amendment and political retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. Tonigan settled. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal as to McQueen and the investigators, holding that absolute prosecutorial immunity and qualified immunity foreclose the federal constitutional claims. View "Bianchi v. McQueen" on Justia Law

After being sanctioned, Plaintiff, an attorney licensed to practice law in the State of Connecticut, was suspended from practice before the Appellate Court for a period of six months. Plaintiff filed a writ of error, asserting that the Appellate Court abused its discretion in suspending her from practice because the conduct for which she was sanctioned did not violate rule 8.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Supreme Court dismissed the writ of error, holding (1) the Appellate Court did not abuse its discretion in suspending Plaintiff from the practice of law before the Appellate Court on the basis of her repeated failure to comply with Appellate Court rules and deadlines, and for filing a frivolous appeal; and (2) Plaintiff’s argument that rule 8.4 provides an exclusive list of misconduct for which an attorney may be sanctioned is patently frivolous. View "Miller v. Appellate Court" on Justia Law

Appellants and appellees are two teams of named plaintiffs and their respective lawyers who disagree over the proper direction for a consumer class action settlement. In Radcliffe I, the court held that appellees created a conflict of interest by conditioning incentive awards for the class representatives on their approval of the proposed settlement agreement. On remand, appellants moved the district court to disqualify appellees’ counsel from representing the class based on that conflict. The court agreed with the district court that California does not apply a rule of automatic disqualification for conflicts of simultaneous representation in the class action context, and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that appellees’ counsel will adequately represent the class. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the qualification motion. View "Radcliffe v. Experian Info. Solutions" on Justia Law

Ling's employment as a Monterey restaurant manager was terminated. Her position was classified as exempt under Industrial Wage Order 5-2001(1)(B)(1), from overtime compensation and mandated meal periods. Ling sued, seeking unpaid overtime wages, waiting time penalties, and premium pay for failure to provide meal and rest periods; she alleged unfair competition and sought attorney‘s fees and costs. An arbitrator rejected Ling’s claim that she was wrongly classified and her contention that chronic staffing shortages required her to spend time performing nonexempt hourly work. Based on nine weeks when she attended training, Ling was compensated $1,038 for missed meal periods and $7,668 in waiting time penalties. The arbitrator deemed employer the prevailing party on all but that minor issue, awarded employer $29,046 in costs and $212,685 in attorney‘s fees based on the dominant contention of erroneous classification.The court corrected and remanded. The court of appeal agreed that the arbitrator exceeded his power by awarding statutory attorney‘s fees to an employer for work performed in defeating inextricably intertwined claims, contrary to public policy embedded in the Labor Code‘s one-way fee shifting provision. The court upheld the trial court‘s remedy and subsequent order confirming an award to plaintiff of costs but not attorney‘s fees based on intervening California Supreme Court authority. View "Ling v. P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Patricia McKay appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Thomas Walker and Cosho Humphrey, LLP, in a legal malpractice action. McKay contended that Walker negligently drafted a property settlement agreement by failing to include provisions that would have resulted in a judgment lien against payments owed to her husband which were secured by a mortgage. The district court concluded that because a mortgage was personal property and not real property, the failure to include a description of the real property subject to the mortgage and the mortgage’s instrument number would not have resulted in the creation of a security interest. Based upon this legal conclusion, the district court held that Walker had not breached a duty to McKay and the alleged breach was not the proximate cause of any damages. McKay argued the district court erred in its conclusion. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "McKay v. Walker" on Justia Law

In 2007, Kansas landowners sued, alleging that the government had taken their land without compensation by conversion of a rail corridor to a trail under the National Trail Systems Act, 16 U.S.C. 1247(d). The Claims Court granted the government summary judgment concerning five claims and certified questions to the Kansas Supreme Court concerning the scope of Kansas railroad easements. That court determined that it lacked jurisdiction to accept the certified question. The Claims Court then granted plaintiffs summary judgment plus attorney fees under the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Act, 42 U.S.C. 4654(c), calculated using the lodestar method, where a reasonable number of hours expended is multiplied by the prevailing rate in the relevant community. Based on the “no-interest rule,” historical rates, rather than rates in force at the end of litigation, were to be used. Counsel sought $2,017,987 in fees and $201,924 in costs, based, in part, on rates in effect in Washington D.C. The court reduced the number of hours and applied the St. Louis rate for hours expended until 2010 and Washington D.C. rates for later work. The Federal Circuit denied a request to supplement the record and affirmed, upholding the reductions imposed by the lower court. View "Biery v. United States" on Justia Law

Binder, a law firm representing claimants before the SSA, appealed from summary judgment in two related cases where Binder seeks past attorney's fees. When Binder sought to hold the SSA liable for the fees, the district courts granted summary judgment to the SSA on the basis of sovereign immunity. The court affirmed the judgments and held that, regardless of the SSA’s statutory duties to withhold attorney’s fees from payments to successful claimants, there is no waiver of sovereign immunity in 42 U.S.C. 406(a) that would permit Binder’s lawsuits for money damages. View "Binder & Binder v. Colvin" on Justia Law

The Joyce law firm purchased professional liability insurance from Professionals Direct. In 2007 the firm won a large damages award for a class of securities-fraud plaintiffs and hired another law firm to sue to collect the money from the defendant’s insurers. Some class members thought the Joyce firm should have handled enforcement of the judgment itself under the terms of its contingency-fee agreement. They took the firm to arbitration over the extra fees incurred. Professionals Direct paid for the firm’s defense in the arbitration. After the arbitrator found for the clients and ordered the firm to reimburse some of the fees they had paid, the insurer refused a demand for indemnification. The district judge sided with the insurer, concluding that the award was a “sanction” under the policy’s exclusion for “fines, sanctions, penalties, punitive damages or any damages resulting from the multiplication of compensatory damages.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed. While the arbitration award was not functionally a sanction, another provision in the policy excludes “claim[s] for legal fees, costs or disbursements paid or owed to you.” Because the arbitration award adjusted the attorney’s fees owed to the firm in the underlying securities-fraud class action, the “legal fees” exclusion applies. View "Edward T. Joyce & Assocs. v. Prof'ls Direct Ins. Co." on Justia Law