ethics

Pennsylvania Judges and Ethics: There’s A Board for That!

ethics, Judicial Ethics Advisory Board, Pennsylvania Supreme Court / By

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court https://www.pacourts.us/courts/supreme-court has created a Judicial Ethics Advisory Board. https://www.pacourts.us/news-and-statistics/news/news-detail/1101/supreme-court-of-pennsylvania-announces-membership-of-new-judicial-ethics-advisory-board The Board is populated with a diverse group of judges from across the state and across the levels of the judiciary. Similar to the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Board will provide advisory ethics opinions to Judges (privately) and opine about […]

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Process, Procedure and Prosecutorial Misconduct in Stacy Parks Miller Case

ethics, misconduct, Stacy Parks Miller / By

On Feb. 8, former Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller was suspended from the practice of law for one year and one day. Miller was found to have committed three separate types of misconduct, all occurring while she was the top law enforcement officer in the county: improper ex parte contact with judges; making

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The Trump-Manafort Joint Defense Agreement: Urban Legend or Reality?

ethics, JDA, Jerome Corsi, Paul Manafort, Rudy Guiliani / By

Let’s start here: the government begins a grand jury investigation of an organization, say a political campaign. Certain campaign employees receive grand jury subpoenas to testify in front of the grand jury. Other employees receive “target letters” from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, informing them that they are targets of a grand jury investigation. Based on

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Perils of Joint Representation: Takeaways From the Cynthia Baldwin Matter

Cynthia Baldwin, ethics / By

Conflicts and confidences are the ­ethical tripwires of our profession. What may seem like a reasonable ­assumption about the alignment of parties and the necessity of maintaining confidences at the outset of a case can quickly become a quagmire, especially in the ­context or ­organizational or joint representations. The Cynthia Baldwin matter demonstrates how difficult

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Advice for the President’s New Lawyer: There’s a Rule for That

ethics, Michael Cohen, Trump / By

As lawyers watching the spectacle of the investigations surrounding the Trump administration, we get to sit in the good seats. We understand the rules of the game and we can follow the action. But however entertaining this game may be, as lawyers we know that two things matter: facts based on reliable, admissible evidence and

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Did the President’s Lawyer Cover Up his Client’s Cover-up?

ethics, James Comey, John Dowd, Michael Flynn / By

If you are interested in ethics, white collar crime, and the way they overlap, Christmas has come early this year.  Your gift is the array of ethical issues inherent in the latest twist in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia’s interference with our Presidential election; it provides a fascinating hypo for ethics

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