When Bad News Can't Wait

I’ve spent the last day-plus at another engaging Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) conference, and just like last year at this same conference, and just like when I was on vacation last year, I got some big news from the courts.   

Georgia On My Mind

Hi, everyone. At long last, some original (if not exactly breaking) content. But I’ve gotten enough questions to pivot from my other busyness and try to answer (even though the answer keeps changing as I write this)—what the hell is going on in Atlanta?

When “Revocation” isn’t Revocation

I write to revisit a topic I wrote about a couple of years ago—the fact that Wisconsin does not have true, lifetime “disbarment.” My position hasn’t changed since 2022—I remain opposed to permanent revocation. Sure, there are absolutely some people who should never have a law license again, but petitions for reinstatement, which require character and fitness investigations, (in most circumstances) a referee hearing, and Supreme Court review provide an appropriate safeguard.

“@MindYour8Point4CsandQs” is Available, But Should I Use It?

 Last week, CNN reported that Wisconsin native and fake elector lawyer Ken Chesebro not only had an anonymous Twitter/X account, “@BadgerPundit,” but denied its existence to Michigan investigators. The account was actually created back when then-Governor Scott Walker dropped the Act 10 bomb, incidentally right around the same time I created my own, very much not anonymous Twitter account (it’s @EthickingStacie now, naturally, but was something else then). We may have interacted at some point, but we were never mutuals.

This Blog Is Not About Politics so I am not weighing in on the electoral or PR ramifications of this burner account. But I have been asked—Ken Chesebro is a lawyer*, and lawyers aren’t allowed to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, right? Can lawyers even have anonymous social media accounts?

When Dumb Scams Happen To Smart People

There was much buzz today about an article in the Cut (a lifestyle website from Vox Media/New York Magazine) – “The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It To A Stranger.” Charlotte Cowles, the Cut’s financial advice columnist, discussed in embarrassing detail how she fell victim to what she termed a “cruel and violating [scam] but one painfully obvious in retrospect.” Cowles did not believe she could ever be a victim—she did not fit any stereotype; her mom called her “maddeningly rational.”

And, Cohen Both Takes The Fall And Passes The Buck

A quick update on New York’s Second AI Hallucination case, which I originally covered a couple of weeks ago—today we learned that Michael Cohen, the client, and not David Schwartz, the lawyer, used artificial intelligence (this time, Google Bard) to generate cases that did not exist. In a declaration he submitted to the court (available starting on page 9 of this packet from the CourtListener docket), Cohen stated that (having been disbarred several years ago) he had not kept up with legal technology trends and did not understand the limitations of AI.

Well, This Is One Way To Blow Up An NDA

What Rule 4.2 does not allow, and has never allowed, is a lawyer to actually go up to a represented opposing party, at her job, and play a confidence game to get the party’s cell phone number to drive a wedge between the party and her lawyer, and then pretend to be a “neutral” third party to broker a settlement and nondisclosure agreement, requiring forfeiture of the settlement plus $1,000 per day for breaching the agreement, which also contained illegal terms.

But, that’s what longtime Trump lawyer Alina Habba apparently did in 2021, according to Above The Law, when she allegedly induced a Bedminster Golf Club server to sign a non-disclosure agreement and settle a sexual harassment claim against the Club’s food and beverage manager. This came to light yesterday, as the server sued to void the agreement and refer Habba to the New Jersey ethics regulators.

The First Rule Of Messing-Stuff-Up Club: Don't Blame the Intern

Another day, another misuse of ChatGPT. A Colorado attorney was fired from his job after using, and suspended last month for one year and one day (with all but 90 days stayed, subject to probation) because he used, ChatGPT to prepare a motion. As with other lawyers who’ve gotten into trouble for misusing AI, Zachariah Crabill filed the motion without verifying that case citations were accurate. Lo and behold,  they were not.

Common Scents In Celebrity Litigation

It’s not surprising that we’ve gossiped that Johnny Depp’s lawyer, Camille Vasquez may (emphasis in original) have directed, permitted, or otherwise appreciated a female member of the legal team going into the women’s bathroom at the courthouse and spraying Depp’s cologne into the stalls so that the opposing party, his ex Amber Heard, would smell it. This was described as “psychological warfare” (against some who accused Depp of abuse).

The Most Dangerous “Lawyer” In The World Is a 1L With a Westlaw Password

It’s August so that means new law students are arriving, and 2L/3L’s are starting their upper-level classes. (Anyone have anything from this blog on their syllabus? A girl can dream.)

First, welcome, new law students! I wrote a little Q&A last year that may be helpful.

Something I didn’t write about last year was a fairly common phenomenon among my classmates, and I am sure it is common among yours as well—six weeks into law school, people are going to start asking you all kinds of legal questions.