Scholarly Articles & Institutional Publications

In, January 2018, NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, released Blockchain Technology Overview.  The document is thought for readers with little or no knowledge of blockchain technology Public comment period: January 24, 2018 through February 23, 2018 Full text available here  

21 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 9 (2015) Author argues that because of the evolving security risks brought by e-mail, Internet, and cloud computing, lawyers must reassess their ethical duties of competence and confidentiality. Ignorance of technology may lead to violations of lawyers’ fundamental ethical duties of competence and confidentiality. Mentioned rules: ABA Model Rule 1.1; […]

Author discusses why “Rule 4.4(b) provides no immediate protection to confidential information in the inadvertently disclosed document”. Mentioned Rule: 4.4(b) New York Code of Professional Responsibility The full text of the document is available at http://www.bryancave…

YourABA 2014 The article discusses the following topics: Email: To encrypt or not to encrypt? Reference to ABA Formal Opinion 99-413, 11-459  and 11-460; North Carolina Opinion 2012-5 (2012) Portable devices. Reference to California State Bar Opinion 2010-179 Cloud Computing. Reference to Alaska Opinion 2014-3; Washington state bar Opinion 2215 (2012); California State Bar Interim Opinion 11-0004 […]

BLT September 2014 The author discusses the importance of civility for lawyer professionalism in an era of great evolution for the legal field brought by technology and globalization. The full text of the article is available at http://www.americanbar…

The author describes White v. Westlaw, a case where Plaintiff, sues West and Lexis for copyright infringement based on the inclusion of two of his copyrighted briefs in Defendants’ databases. The full text is available at: http://blog.ericgoldman…   Related document: Republishing attorney-drafted documents is not infringement  

South Carolina Lawyer 12 (May 2014) Originally published as Ethics Watch: Enforcing Fee Splitting Rules: Equity Rather than Strict Compliance, South Carolina Lawyer 12 (May 2014) Author discusses the basic principles applicable in case of coconseuling or referrals when lawyers, who are not members of a firm, split their fees.   Relevant Law: Illinois Rules of […]

The ABA published an interesting article on Ravel (https://www.ravellaw.com/), a new way to do legal research. The main idea is a different presentation of the search results: rather than displaying only a list of text entries, Ravel draws a visual map of the results, “showing the relationships among cases and their relative importance to each […]

On Oct. 22, 2013 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct that, for the part that is interesting to us, update the guidelines for maintaining competence. The changes bring Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct in line with the ABA Model Rules, in particular Comment [8] to Rule 1.1   From […]

This paper deals with how technology intersects with the legal ethics rules. The relevant areas are competence, confidentiality, and conflicts of interest. The full text is available at http://apps.americanbar.org…