February 7th, 2007
Court of Appeals Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who has pushed hard for judicial reform in New York, is to be reconfirmed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer afternoon.
A ceremony is planned in the Red Room of the Capitol at 1 p.m.
(from Capitol Confidential)
February 2nd, 2007
The vagueness of New York’s new attorney advertising rules is bound to cause First Amendment problems. Speech is restricted with the use of vague terms.
Yesterday, I published a list of major law firms with New York offices that had not complied with the easiest part of the new attorney advertising rules, marking their home page as “attorney advertising.” (Some have since added the words.) While I poked a bit of fun at them in the process for not doing so, some can possibly make an argument for not putting the words up by claiming that the retention of clients is not the “primary purpose” of the site.
This is illustrated by a Carolyn Elefant post at My Shingle that inevitably leads to yet more issues. She is admitted to practice in New York, but her energy regulatory practice is out of Washington D.C. She says she won’t put the Scarlet A of advertising up because her web site is multi-dimensional and advertising isn’t the “primary purpose.” She acknowledges though, that “one purpose of my website and blog is to retain clients.”
So how, exactly, will “primary purpose” be defined? And does that refer to New York clients being the “primary purpose?”
I wrote of the vagueness issue when I asked, Is My Family Photograph An Ethical Violation in New York?, and followed up with another post here. There are more problems with phrases such as “techniques to obtain attention” and portrayal of lawyers “exhibiting characteristics clearly unrelated to legal competence.”
Two other law firm examples before I go, which are the bookends to Ms. Elefant’s gray area of the “primary purpose” of a web site: Nicole Black over at Sui Generis has a website for her business doing work on a contract basis for New York firms. Since the rules do “not include communications to …other lawyers” her site need not have The Mark.
My own site as a New York personal injury attorney, however, has The Mark at the bottom. While I think many of the rules will be struck down as unconstitutional due to their vagueness, I must face the reality that personal injury firms were the target of much of the rules. And I’d rather write about the issues than be the test case.
The litigation has already started, covered in this post at Sui Generis, complete with link to the Complaint.
February 1st, 2007
Despite New York’s new attorney disciplinary rules on advertising going into effect today, and despite months of discussion, most major law firms have apparently failed to comply. The list below includes 11 of the 15 largest firms in the nation.
A review this morning of firm web sites with offices in New York finds that the following are not marked as attorney advertising on their home page (or even their New York page if NY is not the home office), as the new rules mandate:
If these firms have it, I couldn’t find it.
This is not, by any means, an exhaustive list. It is the point I stopped after realizing that most major firms with New York offices were apparently violating the ethics rules by failing to mark their site appropriately. With some of these firms now paying $160,000 per year (plus bonus) for the best and the brightest, I’d love to hear the excuses they give.
The failure to comply is not limited to the big firms, of course. A quick Google search with “New York [insert specialty]” finds the problem to be widespread.
(Nicole Black, over at Sui Generis, likewise noted the lack of compliance, and also wrote of a lawsuit to be filed today challenging the rules)
What the New York judiciary will do about this is any one’s guess. Mine is that they send out a spate of warning letters demanding compliance under threat of reprimand. If they fail to enforce, then the new rules become like jaywalking…an unenforced law. And that would only hurt the credibility of the courts, which means that enforcement must come. (And yes, my own law firm website is in compliance.)
For more on the issue:
[Addendum: As of 1:52, EST on 2/1/07, two of the firms above have complied (either I didn’t see it before, or they added it: Weil Gotshal and Hogan and Hartson (in itty bitty, light colored font)]
Follow-up post at this link.
January 30th, 2007
Give the New York Post the credit for that headline, as the fourth Brooklyn trial starts regarding Democratic boss Clarence Norman. Multiple judges are expected to testify in the scandal, as I indicated recently in “New York Judiciary Set For More Bad News” a short while back. Here is the Post lede:
When Civil Court Judge Karen Yellen sat down, hat in hand, with Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman, Jr., to ask for his support in the 2002 primary, it wasn’t her record he was interested in.
Nor the awards the judge, who was seeking re-election, had received. Nor even the high-profile endorsements she promised.
It was a $12,000 check to a Norman crony for an all-but-useless mailing and a $9,000 payment directly into the pocket of a shady political consultant, prosecutors alleged yesterday, as they opened their fourth case against the former assemblyman.
The defense?
Norman’s lawyer, Anthony Ricco, meanwhile, compared Norman to Martin Luther King Jr., likening him to a politician fighting for the rights of his constituents….”These individuals were not extorted by Clarence Norman,” said Ricco. “He tried to inspire them beyond their own ignorance. Ignorance of themselves and ignorance of . . . the Brooklyn community.”
The larceny and coercion charges at stake are part of DA Charles Hynes long-time efforts to root out corruption in the purchase of judicial robes.
Given the possibility of additional indictments from ongoing investigations, and a new scandal that came to light last week from the ex-wife of former Supreme Court Justice Reynold Mason (who alleges payments were made for Democratic party backing), the problems (and press) will continue to be bad for one of my favorite venues…
Stay tuned…
January 29th, 2007
New York’s Chief Judge Judith Kaye is again speaking out on the appalling situation where our judges must go “hat in hand” to the legislature to get paid a decent wage. This comes fresh on the heels of Simpson Thacher’s decision to give rookie associates $160,000 plus a $30,000 bonus, a decision followed by other firms.
In a front page article in the New York Law Journal, Judge Kaye calls for,
“an end to the inequity and injustice of our so-called system of compensation that requires New York state judges every five, or six or seven or eight or, now, nine years to come, hat in hand, on bended knee to beg and plead with our partners in government even for a cost of living increase.”
New York’s Supreme Court judges (our trial court) now start at $136,700. I don’t know how we can possibly recruit the best and the brightest based on that. Hopefully, the combination of Eliot Spitzer’s push for reform with the constant efforts of Chief Judge Kaye will help to get things done.
When I go to Albany to lobby in a few months with the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, as I do each year on issues related to personal injury law, this will once again be on the agenda. As it is every year. It is in every one’s best interest.