Happy Monday!
Friday’s questions are here. The answers follow today’s Honor Roll.
Honor Roll
- Karen Allen, Karen Allen Law
- Penny Benelli, Dakin & Benelli
- Alberto Bernabe, Professor, UIC School of Law
- Beth DeBernardi, Administrative Law Judge, Vermont Dept. of Labor
- Andrew Delaney, Martin Delaney & Ricci
- Benjamin Gould, Paul Frank + Collins
- Robert Grundstein
- Keith Kasper, McCormick Fitzpatrick Kasper & Burchard
- Deb Kirchwey, Law Office of Deborah Kirchwey
- Elizabeth Kruska, Past-President, Vermont Bar Association
- Pam Loginsky, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Pierce County (WA)
- Kevin Lumpkin, Sheehey Furlong & Behm
- Bob Lydon, Law Clerk for Vermont Supreme Court Justice Nancy Waples
- Pam Marsh, Marsh & Wagner
- Susan McManus, Office of the Bennington County Public Defender
- Jack McCullough, Project Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid
- Jeff Messina, Messina Law
- Hal Miller, First American Title, Hawaii State Counsel
- Keith Roberts, Darby Kolter & Roberts
- Honorable John Valente, Vermont Superior Judge
- Jason Warfield, J.D.
- Thomas G. Wilkinson, Jr., Cozen O’Connor
Answers
Question 1
Regular reader Professor Alberto Bernabe urges law students to remember the core principles of legal ethics by associating those principles with the letter grades that they don’t want to receive in his class. So, Professor Bernabe refers to 4 Cs, 1 D, and 1F.
There’s a rule that requires lawyers to act with “reasonable _______ and promptness” when representing a client. A comment to the rule states that a “lawyer’s duty to act with reasonable ________ does not require the use of offensive tactics or preclude the treating of all persons involved in the legal process with courtesy and respect.”
Which core duty that is one of Professor Bernabe’s “bad grades” properly fills in the blank?
DILIGENCE. The language is from Comment 1 to V.R.Pr.C. 1.3.
Question 2
A recent amendment to the Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct prohibits lawyers from issuing a check that is drawn on a pooled interest-bearing trust account (IOLTA) to ________:
- A. A relative.
- B. An employee.
- C. Themselves.
- D. Cash. V.R.Pr.C. 1.15A(b)(3)(i).
Question 3
Fill in the blank.
A comment to one of the conflicts rules states that “continued common representation will almost always be inadequate if one client _________________.”
- A. pays a higher percentage of the lawyer’s fee than the other client.
- B. is also a client of the lawyer’s in an unrelated matter.
- C. is the lawyer’s main contact on matters related to the representation.
- D. asks the lawyer not to disclose to the other client information relevant to the common representation.V.R.Pr.C. 1.7, Cmt. [31].
Question 4
Fill-in-the-blank.
True story. Earlier this week I received an email from a lawyer who was trying to avoid “noisy _______.” Indeed, “noisy _______” is a phrase intended to remind lawyers not to disclose confidential information when filing and arguing a certain type of motion.
What word properly fills in the blank?
Withdrawal. See, Stop Making Noise
Question 5
Today’s introduction includes a link to the press release that DOJ issued after Attorney Michael Avenatti was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing millions from clients.
Last month, Netflix released a documentary in which Avenatti appeared. The documentary re-tells the true story of Avenatti’s former client, John Leonard. In the mid-90s, Leonard, then 20, found a loophole in a promotion run by a major corporation that, according to Leonard, entitled him to a $30 million fighter jet. The corporation, which ran the promotion as part of the so-called “Cola Wars,” claimed that the offer of a jet was an obvious joke and that nobody could have reasonably believed that they could actually win a fighter jet.
Netflix teased the documentary by describing the man’s attempts to claim the fighter jet as setting “the stage for a David & Goliath court battle for the ages.” In the end, the corporation prevailed.
Name the corporation.
Pepsi. The documentary is Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? According to Salon, Avenatti’s work uncovering prior Pepsi promotion scandals was one of most bizarre revelations in the documentary. Pepsi may have won the legal action but, depending on how you view things, arguably lost the Cola Wars. Indeed, the Garage Bar menu includes Jack & Coke, no substitutions.