Ethics Archives

21 02, 2011

On Presidents Day: Abraham Lincoln’s Advice on Lawyering

2019-04-01T20:43:35+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|3 Comments

Around 1850 Abraham Lincoln wrote some sound advice to lawyers and those contemplating becoming lawyers. Over 160 years later, his advice is still worth heeding. Hat tip to Tom Adolph, a partner at Jackson Walker L.L.P., for sharing this with me. Here are Lincoln’s words:

“I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. […]

Why Lawyers MUST Get Their Heads Out of the Sand about Social Media

2019-02-10T23:15:58+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|6 Comments

The mushrooming popularity of social media creates novel legal issues to be resolved, as well as a lot of opportunities for mistakes by lawyers and their clients. Wake up! How can you answer your client’s questions or warn them about potential legal infractions, if you aren’t familiar with the medium? Could you be completely missing a good business development opportunity?

Many lawyers tell me their clients don’t use social media, but have they really checked? Or is that just an assumption? How do you check, if you don’t engage in social media yourself? Not long ago I spoke to about 50 lawyers, most of whom knew very little about social media. The room got very quiet when I started putting up on the screen the logos of their clients who had Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. If you asked your clients last year whether they used social media, they may have a different answer now. Could your competitors be enhancing their relationships with your clients via social media, while you remain oblivious?

Even if your clients don’t officially have a social media presence, their employees, customers, or competitors may be posting things that affect your clients. When they ask you what to do about it, how will you be able to advise them if you don’t understand what they are talking about?

Here are some examples of how you might be called on in your law practice to address social media issues.

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Toward the Humane and Ethical Treatment of Lawyers

2004-07-01T11:16:34+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Toward the Humane and Ethical Treatment of Lawyers

This new column seeks to raise the bar on the ethics and quality of life of lawyers. Many lawyers today suffer a growing malaise. As Steven Keeva, editor of the ABA Journal, says in his book Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life, lawyers feel “trapped in lavishly furnished cells” in a “culture that values winning to the exclusion of almost everything else.” Keeva comments that collegiality and civility are “two much-mourned casualties of contemporary law practice.” A 1990 ABA Young Lawyers Division Survey of Career Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction found that ” increasing hours worked and resulting decrease in personal time have become a major problem.” and dissatisfaction in the legal profession has increased. The unhappiness of young lawyers (and consequent law firm attrition) reached such epidemic levels that the Association of the Bar of the City of New York formed a Task Force on Lawyers’ Quality of Life in 1996. The Task Force’s 2000 report reflects the results of focus groups and surveys of lawyers in 17 of the largest firms in New York City. The report summarized the price of lawyer malaise: “While at the firm, unhappy associates fail to achieve their full potential at a cost to them, their firms, their clients and their families. Invariably many lawyers leave the law firm, and even the practice of law, prematurely, resulting in undesirable and costly turnover.”
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