9/22/21
By: R. Victoria Fuller and Jessica Gray Kelly Intellectual Property attorneys face malpractice risks unique to their specialty. Avoiding claims from clients and complying with the rules of professional conduct requires practitioners to exercise constant vigilance. Understanding both the circumstances that tend to drive claims, and the types of conflicts that trip-up IP practitioners, will help you mitigate your risk. Recent data trends show claims arise from foreign filings,…
6/21/21
By: Nancy Reimer, Victoria Fuller and Lori Eller In Tedeschi-Freij vs. Percy Law Group, P.C., et al., the Massachusetts Appeals Court held a plaintiff need not show evidence of quantifiable damages to survive a motion for summary judgment on a claim for the unauthorized use of her name in violation of (1) M.G.L. c. 214,…
Another Hit to Short-Term Rentals: Styller v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Lynnfield
6/11/21
By: Jessica Gray Kelly, Esq. & Matthew L. Schwartz, Esq. Local governments seeking to curb short-term rentals by private homeowners received a win this week in the case of Styller v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Lynnfield, SJC-12901. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held the Plaintiff’s occasional, short-term rental of his private single-family home was not…
4/30/21
By: Kirsten Patzer In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States(the “Court”) reversed the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., holding Google’s use of Oracle’s Java Application Programming Interfaces (API) in its Android operating system was “fair use.” The Court granted Google’s certiorari…
Departing Lawyers’ “Theft of Files” May Lead to a Violation of M.G.L.c. 93A
4/29/21
By: Nancy Reimer, Jennifer Markowski and Lori Eller The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently held in Governo Law Firm LLC v. Bergeron, 487 Mass. 188 (2021), that the inapplicability of G. L. c. 93A, § 11, to disputes arising from an employment relationship does not mean that an employee never can be liable to its…
A Quick Summary of the Ethics Rules on Discrimination for California Lawyers
4/20/21
By: Greg Fayard For decades, the California State Bar had an anti-discrimination ethics rule applicable to lawyers. That rule prevented lawyers from unlawfully discriminating in hiring, promoting, firing, or accepting or not accepting cases based on certain protected characteristics—the big ones that people thought about in the early 1990s: race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national…
A Massachusetts Attorney Is Suspended for Overbilling Clients
4/7/21
By: Nancy Reimer and Eleni Demestihas In the Matter of [Attorney] (SJC 12850) the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found the attorney not only charged excessive fees to multiple clients but did so intentionally over a matter of months. In 2015, as an equity partner, the attorney did not bill her time contemporaneously. Instead, she tasked…
Are Non-Refundable Lawyer Retainers Legal in California?
1/26/21
By: Greg Fayard Joe wants to hire Bill, a California lawyer, to defend a breach of contract case. Bill agrees to defend Joe but will only take a $10,000 non-refundable retainer. Is this legal? No. Under Rule 1.5(d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct that govern California lawyers, non-refundable retainers are now permitted in a very…
California Lawyers Who Ignore Lienholders Do So At Their (Disciplinary) Peril
10/20/20
By: Greg Fayard In personal injury law, California lawyers regularly must deal with medical liens. For example, lienholders have certain rights to proceeds from a settled case and expect to be paid. In the past, if a California lawyer ignored or mishandled a medical lien on personal injury proceeds, the lienholder could pursue the attorney…
Tax Court Finds that a Rejected E-Filed Tax Return Satisfies the Beard Test
9/29/20
By: Lee Whatling The IRS’ software automatically rejects e-filed tax returns that do not meet certain criteria. Paper tax returns are generally not subject to the same treatment. This disparity came to a head in Fowler v. Commissioner, 155 T.C. No. 7 (2020), in which the petitioner’s timely-e-filed tax return was automatically rejected by the…
Arbitration Clauses in Legal Engagements Are Not Per Se Void
9/17/20
By: Dana Maine Joining with most other jurisdictions, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed a Court of Appeals decision finding that arbitration clauses in attorney engagement agreements are not against public policy and clarified the burden of persuasion for demonstrating procedural unconscionability in Innovative Images, LLC v. James Darren Summerville, et al., (Sept. 8, 2020). In…
Avoiding Implied Attorney-Client Relationships with Individual Members of Small Companies
9/15/20
By: Jennifer Weatherup Where an attorney represents a partnership or entity, there is the potential for him or her to create an implied attorney-client relationship with its individual members, imposing a duty of care that the attorney may not be prepared to satisfy. This risk is particularly strong with small entities and partnerships, and attorneys…