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Just kidding but I figured it’s been a while since all the posters in the coffee room posted extensively about law school while desperately trying to avoid giving the impression they are all classmates at Columbia, which is, in fact, the truth.
‘Sup bros! Good luck with you’re bar study!
I graduated and passed the bar, so I can stop pretending.
Good luck with you’re spelling.
Good luck with you’re bar study!
As in the study of bars?
Metal or alcoholic?
I learned today a mmnemnnic device from barbri.
Just remember TERJNKHUIPOKLJ!
I solved this problem decades ago. I found a job that requires a law degree but doesn’t involve practising law, and lived happily ever after. I explain to people that I went law school, passed the bar, and then did tsuvah. No clients to rip off, no clients in need assistance in ripping off other people, no letting criminals go free, no locking up innocent people – and I haven’t missed a meal except for taanisim.
If a ‘Veltz Meshugener’ could get into law school, what does that say…
akuperma, that sounds great…mind sharing what it is that you do?
The Great Librarian.
No clients to rip off, no clients in need assistance in ripping off other people, no letting criminals go free, no locking up innocent people – and I haven’t missed a meal except for taanisim.
You’ve got to be kidding me. You don’t seem like you understand what lawyers actually do.
Being a lawyer is probably the most honest profession.
Except if you’re a criminal lawyer.
(Which is a redundancy.)
Civil and family lawyers also, often, knowingly make claims in court that are false, especially if they think it isn’t provable otherwise.
Civil and family lawyers also, often, knowingly make claims in court that are false, especially if they think it isn’t provable otherwise.
What is a civil lawyer? Of course they don’t. Why would they?
Trial lawyers who argue civil and matrimonial cases in court and lie on behalf of their clients.
popa bar abba: An attorney’s duty is to assist the client. If you restrict yourself to clients who are tsadikim, you will have no ethical issues. But most clients are normal people, who often get into all sorts of mischief. How often does a client tell an attorney: Figure out how much I injured the other person in the accident and I’ll pay? How about, negotiate a fair price (not the best price)? Many people who need a lawyer have real problems, sometimes of their own making – and the lawyer’s duty is to provide them all lawful assistance. Justice and fairness and morality are all good, as long as they benefit the client. — Halacha avoided this problem by not allowing lawyers (in the “barrister/litigator” sense) and requiring judges to protect the legal rights of all parties (rather than requiring each party to know the law and assert their rights, and to lose them if they don’t understand the law).
Sure so let’s take an example
You’re a lawyer and you work in a big firm in the hedge fund group. Your job is to write 100 page agreements that only lawyers can read and negotiate them with other lawyers. Sometimes you also represent the investors and negotiate the 100 page agreements that somebody else wrote. You argue about things like should the person running the hedge fund be required to devote “substantial time” or maybe “substantially all his business time” to the hedge fund. And whether the hdege fund should invest only in publically traded securities or also in some over the counter securities.
What halachic dilemmas do you expect to arise (other than shaving during sefira)?
and what if the hedge fund you are working for is doing something crooked, or part of the agreement is to rip off other investors (and while big investors are probably ripping your off if they can, even hedge funds end up selling to small investors who may not be able to realize they are being defrauded)
There are plenty of people in prison who used to work on Wall Street, and all of them had lots of lawyers helping them
So explain that. You mean suppose the hedge fund managers are planning to break the agreement and take more money than they’re supposed to?
You think in that case they would tell the lawyers? Why would they?
And not sure what you mean that big investors would rip off the other investors. Hedge fund investors aren’t involved in running the hedge fund, so how would they rip anyone off. They’re usually like pension plans or insurance compainies or states or countries.
You think in that case they would tell the lawyers? Why would they?
Because they’re afraid the lawyers will catch them, so instead they give them a cut.
Sure, but most shochtim are honest people.
I refuse to get involved in this discussion.
I refuse to get involved in this discussion.
How much would your opinion cost?
Joseph,
any attorney that makes knowingly false claims in court just be reported to the Bar Committee (different name in each state) and have his/her license suspended/revoked. Lawyers are not allowed to make knowingly false claims or allow their clients to testify falsely (if the lawyer knows the testimony is false).
I practice family law. I have never knowingly made a false claim in court. This is not to say I have never made a statement based on information from a client that has been legitimately refuted. I did not know it was false.
For example, if a husband says he earns only $1000 week (and shows me pay stubs to match) and I argue based on that he can afford only X dollars per week child support or alimony and the wife’s attorney presents evidence gathered by their investigators that the husband also has a side job earning $400 week cash, then my claim has been refuted, but I didn’t knowingly present a falsehood.
I had a client last year who showed me pay stubs showing $75,000 yearly income. I refused to submit his signed financial affidavit to the court. I knew that he could not maintain his lifestyle on 3 times that amount and I would not suborn perjury.
Criminal attorneys are taught to never ask the client if he/she is guilty. This is knowledge better not known by the attorney in order to mount an effective defense.
CTL: If a potential client admits his guilt to a capital offense to any potential attorney he speaks with, no attorney can plead not guilty on his behalf?
Joseph,
If a client admits guilt to his attorney, the attorney cannot put him on the stand if the attorney knows the client intends to lie. The attorney also can not plead the client innocent and present an alternative theory of the case. The attorney can plead innocent because of mental defect, diminished capacity, etc. and attempt to win the case that way.
That’s why the attorney doesn’t want to know. If an attorney representing Joe Schmoe in a murder trial can raise enough reasonable doubt by showing the deceased’s widow, business partner, competitor, etc. had means, motive and opportunity it might get Joe off. But if Joe has told the attorney he did it, then only innocent because of XXX can be plead and argued by an ethical attoirney.
CTL: If a potential client admits his guilt to a capital offense to any potential attorney he speaks with, no attorney can plead not guilty on his behalf?
Of course the lawyer can, and should. Pleading not guilty is not saying you didn’t do it; it’s just saying the government has to do its job in proving it.
If we required people to claim that they didn’t do it, that would be requiring them to testify against themselves. Which is illegal under the constitution, and under halacha also.
Halacha only precludes a guilty plea in a capital offense. Other crimes the court can accept a guilty plea, per halacha.
Regarding American jurisprudence, popa and CTL just make conflicting claims in their last comments.
If a client admits guilt to his attorney, the attorney cannot put him on the stand if the attorney knows the client intends to lie. The attorney also can not plead the client innocent and present an alternative theory of the case. The attorney can plead innocent because of mental defect, diminished capacity, etc. and attempt to win the case that way.
CT: But the lawyer can put in a plea of not guilty and make the govt prove its case.
Also, not sure what you mean they can’t present an alternative theory. The defense can still present true evidence and argue it indicates something.
Halacha only precludes a guilty plea in a capital offense. Other crimes the court can accept a guilty plea, per halacha.
What are you saying? If a person admits to a sin that is chayav malkus you think beis din believes him and gives him malkus?
Popa….
“If we required people to claim that they didn’t do it, that would be requiring them to testify against themselves. Which is illegal under the constitution’
Unless the client pleads guilty the client is required to say they didn’t do it by pleading not guilty (it can be by reasons of insanity, etc.) That is not testifying, because the client is generally speaking through the mouth of his attorney, and neither the attorney or the client has been sworn in to give testimony as a witness at that point.
Non-attorneys often confuse pleading and opening statements with sworn witness testimony. They are far different and have different rules and protections. That is why jury instructions often include a warning that nothing said by the attorneys in opening statements should ever be considered as evidence during jury deliberations.
Your logic that a not-guilty plea is testimony against him/herself is not true. A plea of guilty is against the defendant, and 5th Amendment rights can’t compel self incrimination.
Popa….
“Also, not sure what you mean they can’t present an alternative theory. The defense can still present true evidence and argue it indicates something.”
Alternative theory of the case in criminal defense is not what one would call “true evidence.”
If Client X tells his attorney “I broke in and stole $50,000 from Quick Mart Thursday Night.” The attorney #1 can’t put X on the stand if X tells the Attorney I’m going to testify I didn’t do it. The attorney also can call others to the stand, impugn their integrity and try to show that they were in the area, needed money, had shady backgrounds, knew the money was in the store overnight and the next day were seen making large purchases for cash.>>>>that would be an alternative theory of the case, that Y, an employee of Quick Mart, who had a drug or gambling problem, who knew the access points most accessible and which night a large amount of cash would be in the store, has no alibi for the night in question and paid his bookie or dealer $10,000 in cast Friday morning was a likely suspect, likely enough to raise reasonable doubt in the mind of the jurors. BUT this alternative theory of the crime isn’t ‘true evidence’ if Y didn’t commit the crime. What it is, is sworn testimony of those called for examination and cross, along with the attorney’s questions that become part of the trial transcript.
Again: Disclaimer, I do not practice criminal law, and except for the every 4=5 year pro bono case ordered to take by the court I don’t enter a criminal trial courtroom. Also rules vary by jurisdiction. Most criminal cases occur in state courts not federal.
Thanks CT. I’m not sure I follow the theory of the case notion.
But I am going to push back on the not guilty plea concept. If the law viewed a not guilty claim as synonymous with stating that you didn’t do it, then they would not be permitted to ask the defendant to plea at all, since that is the same as asking him to incriminate himself.
Not a CLS 3L, but good luck to all on the bar exam. Hope not too many of you paid the extra $$$ for Barbri–Themis is just as good for half the price.
PBA: For an interesting case study that pretty squarely addresses your hedge fund example, see the current allegations surrounding Evan Greebel. It’s easy to judge the guy, but what do you do when your client comes to you and asks you do draft him a Consulting Agreement between the company for which he is CEO (and is presumably authorized to act) and his hedge funds? Even if you recognize the potential fraud, not so easy to say no and lose a major client when business generation is pretty much your entire job.
I actually largely agree with you point (which in the corporate context is helped quite a bit by the SEC’s Accredited Investor rules and the general sophistication and legal representation of all parties involved in a major transaction), but I wouldn’t go too far arguing that legal work is free of ethical dilemmas.
And since you seem fairly familiar with the fund formation context more generally (an area that I don’t practice in directly but have a fair amount of exposure too), another interesting timely ethical dilemma surrounds the use and disclosure of management fees charged to portfolio companies and various bulk-discounts offered to private funds at the expense of portfolio companies. A number of funds, including Blackstone, recently settled cases involving these issues, which are may or may not be contained in the 100-page fund document you referenced but are within the more ambiguous realm of fiduciary duties.
We could do other areas of law.
Suppose you’ve been engaged by operating business to do a public debt offering. You will work with underwriters’ counsel to draft several hundred pages of disclosures. What ethical issues arise?
This is the most boring thread I have EVER seen here.
Yet I keep returning for I am fascinated to see if it can get any MORE boring.
So far every time I return I have not been disappointed.
Feivel……………
Most legal work is extremely boring. Most attorneys seldom try cases. The bread and butter of our practices may be cut and dry contracts, wills, estates, filings, real estate closings, etc.
I don’t practice criminal law and do no personal injury work. 95% of my work is boring family law and trusts.
One son-in-law who is an attorney (but does not work for me..lives in another state) said that the only profession more boring than most legal work is being an auditor.
This is the most boring thread I have EVER seen here.
Yet I keep returning for I am fascinated to see if it can get any MORE boring.
So far every time I return I have not been disappointed.
Welcome to the practice of law.
I can’t tell if the legal issues you are discussing are boring or not. the thread is boring because I have no inkling (baby octopus?) what you are talking about.
We could do other areas of law.
Suppose you’ve been engaged by operating business to do a public debt offering. You will work with underwriters’ counsel to draft several hundred pages of disclosures. What ethical issues arise?
You are tasked with putting together a disclosure schedule listing all “material” litigation items settled within the last two years. You look in the data room and see a number of litigation items totaling varying amounts, so naturally you list all above a threshold amount dictated to you by the senior associate. However, you also notice that of the smaller items below the threshold, many pertain to a common operating issue that has not been resolved and will likely lead to more and larger suits. You ask the senior associate whether to include the issue separately in the Risk Factors in the Registration Statement/Offering Memorandum, and he or she tells you that “the client doesn’t want to spook the potential investors, and there’s no way the underwriters are going to catch that–leave them out.” What do you do?
An example of a moral dilemma for a lawyer (one which he failed):
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/vote-third-parties#post-609836
Now that I reread it, my example was written in a way that may have made it unclear as to whether or not the senior associate was arguing on substantive grounds. If it helps, imagine that instead of what I wrote he or she simply said “I don’t think it needs to go in, it’s not material enough–let’s not spook investors for no reason”, but you still have a nagging feeling that it should go in. Maybe a little more reasonable-minds-can-differ that way.
And good luck trying to go over a senior associate’s head: they have 1000x the opportunity to throw you under the bus and land you the “time to move on” shpiel at your next annual review. If you escalate and threaten to quit every time you have a disagreement with those above you on a substantive issue (e.g. definition of “material” disclosure), you better not be bluffing because you’ll be looking for a job faster than you probably intended.
And I’m not sure what you mean by “doesn’t happen any more.” These types of conversations and (what I see as) the resulting ethical dilemmas happen every day at every major firm. Again, partially mitigated by the fact that counterparties are usually sophisticated (or, in the case above, the plaintiffs’ bar and the SEC always have 10b-5), but that doesn’t remove the issues entirely.
These types of conversations and (what I see as) the resulting ethical dilemmas happen every day at every major firm.
Really?
I mean, I obviously don’t work at every major firm, but assuming my employer is fairly representative, I can say that lawyers–even junior ones, to albeit to a lesser extent–are making judgment calls every day. (As noted above, usually boring decisions–the clients make all of the high-level ones.) Whether to mark discovery items as privileged, whether to include an item into a disclosure or risk factors (and how to present them), whether to represent clients with questionable practices (e.g., middle eastern sovereign wealth funds), whether to clog a docket up with punitive motions (e.g., motions to DQ counsel), whether to notify the opposing counsel of a mistake they have made (e.g., overdisclosing privileged info or accidentally uploading sensitive material to a data room)–the list goes on and on, these are just what I thought of as I was typing. And with those judgment calls come varying levels of ethical dilemmas. I agree with your point to the extent that there are likely far more day-to-day ethical issues in, say, criminal defense than capital markets work, but I don’t think any area (or, for that matter, any profession, though that’s tough for me to back up) is entirely free of ethical dilemmas.
Veltz Meshugener–
Great post. I’m curious as to whether you are actually a 3L (as implied by your first post?) or working. Not that it changes the veracity of your statement, but I know my thoughts on this issue have changed a bit since I began practicing and I’m curious as to whether you share that experience.
Thankfully, I’ve actually never encountered an issue like the one I used as an example, and certainly never felt sufficiently uncomfortable that I would do something anywhere nearly as drastic as calling opposing counsel to tell them of an issue (I’m not even sure how this would play out–if your firm found out you did that, you’d be in a ton of hot water I’d imagine) or going above my direct superior.
Your suggestion regarding reframing to confirm with the partner is a really good one, and might work a lot of the time, but I can see a senior associate (most of whom will immediately see what you’re trying to do if you cc them or feel ambushed if you don’t) getting salty if an hour or two after you asked him about X a partner calls and says “[junior associate] just asked me about X [which you just asked him about], and I agree with him and think we should do Y.” As for your point regarding reviews, I guess it depends on people’s personality: I’ve worked with people who recognize that law is a team exercise and would thank you for confirming with the partner (I do my utmost to work with these types and hope to be this type if/when I get more senior), and I’ve worked (thankfully rarely) with people who are more concerned with their own career progression and would freeze you out of future deals for going over their head and making a partner question their judgment. If you know of a firm that consists solely of the former, let me know and I’ll definitely consider lateraling ASAP.
Your last paragraph is thought-provoking as well. I agree (and have stated above) that the sophistication of the parties involved in a transaction does indeed make it hard (and, from a reputational standpoint, stupid) to “pull a fast one” and I don’t think that happens much if at all. I guess the situations I’m thinking about are more in the grey area–e.g., massaging disclosure language (which certainly happens in every public filing). I think my revised example illustrates this: unclear what the motivation not to include is, a judgment call on which minds can differ, and unlikely to be caught by other parties unless they are sharp.
On a broader level, I really don’t mean to scare people off and make law (or at least corporate practice) sound like some sort of ethical minefield: it isn’t, certainly not relatively speaking. My goal in posting in this thread is simply to push back a little on the statement above that “being a lawyer is probably the most honest profession” (which may still be true–I have no means of comparison–but not because there are zero ethical issues to contend with).
So the maskana is that litigators are cheaters, but corporate associates are malachim?
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