Practice of Law

Mentoring Program of the Maryland Professionalism Center

photoI am pleased to report a successful year in the Mentoring Program through the Maryland Professionalism Center, Inc., a non-profit organization that works in close coordination with the Maryland Court of Appeals, particularly with the Hon. Lynne Battaglia of Maryland’s highest court. My mentee this year was a young aspiring family law attorney whose prior mentor through the program failed to follow through. Despite a major medical upheaval on my end mid-year and logistical issues, my mentee and I successfully completed the entirety of the program in a timely manner.

The mentoring program requires six meetings between mentor and mentee on topics ranging from, among others, unwritten “customs” about postponement requests, major malpractice and ethics pitfalls, conflicts of interest, time management, legal writing style, ethical and effective client development strategies and, perhaps most importantly, how to select suitable cases (my translation: how to reject flaky, meritless and inefficient cases.)

I encourage any experienced Maryland attorney who has the time and inclination to join the Mentoring Program; it is a great way to discharge part of the hortatory pro bono publico duty.

UPDATE 4 Feb 2014: I thank Ms. Monise Brown, Executive Director of the Maryland Professionalism Center, Inc., for alerting me to potentially misleading language in the title of this post, since corrected.  While the Maryland Professional Center, Inc., serves the interests of the Bar of Maryland in the sense of the collectivity of Maryland attorneys licensed under the supervision of the Court of Appeals, it and its Mentoring Program are not part of the Maryland State Bar Association, Inc. (MSBA), Maryland’s voluntary bar association to which about 1/2 of Maryland attorneys belong (myself included.)  The MSBA may have meritorious mentoring programs of its own.

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in Maryland law - general, Mentoring, Practice of Law, 0 comments

Jan-Feb Issue of MD Bar Journal is worth reading

The Maryland State Bar Association’s Bar Journal is always a worthy read but there are particular articles worth reading for many solo attorneys in the most recent issue.  Preeminent attorney discipline attorney Alvin Frederick, Esquire, of Eccleston & Wolf and Associate Bar Counsel James Gaither, Esquire, provided an article on online professional ethics and cybersecurity, respectively.  Each article merits your time if you practice in this state.

I was interested to read that the Office of Bar Counsel of Maryland is now, as of the last 60 days or so, running a paperless office.  My own office is making that transition and it would be worth reading how the Office of Bar Counsel undertook the process; that fact was not the central point of Mr. Gaither’s piece, but of interest to me.

Mr. Frederick’s piece (which I believe he co-authored, will give full credit when I return to the office tomorrow) discussed among other topics the issue of online puffery in attorney ads.  While puffery in attorney ads is not a new ethical concern, the Internet seems to have instigated (or at least accompanied) a race to the bottom.  The Bar Journal article noted that an attorney who claimed in such an ad to be the “most aggressive” would be engaging in misconduct unless the attorney could substantiate the claim objectively – a likely impossible task.  In my experience, the more common forms of online puffery are claims to be the “best” attorney in some field under either no objective criteria or under paper-thin rent-an-award standards from some attorney marketing company without peer review, comment or objective measurements.

I used to put my Avvo rating on this site; I won’t name my current rating but it presents me very well.  On the other hand, I have a substantially higher Avvo rating than some of the undisputed leaders of this state’s Bar.  There’s no way that I am a superior attorney to the some of the attorneys who were already Bar leaders on the day that I sat for the Bar exam in 1994, but Avvo will tell you that I am superior to them.  With some regrets, as there are things about Avvo that I did and do like, I no longer list that score here because to do so would be at least theoretically misleading to some clients.  Avvo unfortunately has the problem of profiting from this sort of serious misinformation.  Long-time attorney rating service Martindale-Hubbell (now owned by Lexis) has similar, though perhaps smaller, problems.

Just test this out: google “Best attorney [town]” and watch what comes up.  You can also google “attorney specialist [field of law] Maryland” and see the same sort of thing.  This blog has an attorney “specialist” [sic] finder for Maryland attorneys through Google some months ago, but I took it down because it seemed like overkill.  Many attorneys claim to be the “best” or the “top” attorney, in suspect if not outright definite violation of the rules against lying to clients about attorney skill sets and quality.

Every attorney should be and accordingly feel proud to claim to be competent.  Competence is Rule 1.1 of the ethics rules in Maryland and in most states; it’s at the top of the rule book.  Know what you are doing, or at a minimum associate with attorneys as needed to fill in the knowledge gaps.  But any claim above competence needs to be verifiable objectively if it’s designed for, or has the effect of, inducing a client to retain or keep the attorney.  If something is objectively true and verifiable as such, it’s probably fine to state that it’s true, but the number of attorneys (particularly new to practice) who claim to be “the top” or “the best” attorneys is almost staggering.  Many of the those attorneys may actually fall short of technical competence, let along being better than the attorneys who have been doing CLE for junior attorneys for 20 years or who wrote the Maryland hornbooks or standard manuals for their practice areas.

When I judge another attorney’s skill or leadership, here’s what I look for:

  • Peer-reviewed scholarship or publication, either in
  • Providing CLE in that’s attorneys field (if you have been teaching the material for a while, you are going to be getting it right in all likelihood).  Maryland doesn’t have much of a problem of garbage time-filler CLE because CLE is not mandatory (yet.)
  • Mentoring roles in helping other attorneys
  • Leadership in speciality bar associations
  • Pro bono work
  • Consistent high ratings over time from peer-reviewed ratings services
  • Appellate work in the practice field
  • Peer Review Committee work with the AGC
  • Representing other attorneys in any litigation, disciplinary or otherwise
  • The opinions of attorneys who fulfill 3-4 or more of the above
  • A website that deals in substance and actual practice issues, and not mere puffery
  • Humility regarding skills or experience – this actually makes me up-rate the attorney in my mind, for ethical caution and long-term thinking

An online ad claiming that the attorney is “top” or “best” is likely to make me down-rate the attorney, under the theory that the lawyer is both minimally accomplished and reckless regarding ethical compliance.  An online ad stating that the Maryland attorney “specializes” (or using any other part of speech) tells me that the attorney either is reckless regarding ethical compliance or is at least negligent regarding the supervision of the social media hacks that the attorney hired to “get eyeballs” or “make good SEO.”

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in Legal Ethics, News, Practice of Law, 0 comments

Things you should not post on Avvo.com

I have mixed feelings about Avvo.com.  On the one hand, it has challenged the long-time attorney ratings monopoly of Martindale-Hubbell.  While lawyers can “rig” an Avvo rating, lawyers can also “rig” a Martindale rating to some extent.  Competition is healthy, even in semi-rigged BS ratings systems.  Hell, even Maury Povich has to take some maurylogical market challenges from Jerry Springer.

On the other hand, Avvo encourages people to produce discoverable information like this:

Screen Shot 2013-08-30 at 9.13.01 PM

 

Not that many people fit this description in 4000-odd strong Pocomoke City, in which town pretty much the only institution is the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a relatively small historically Black university.  I suspect that the prosecutor in this case would not be interested in trolling Avvo for admissions, but why not?  Maybe in a small county like Worcester County, Maryland, that is inundated disproportionately with criminal infractions from the seasonal crowd in Ocean City, some paraphernalia charge from a decade ago in Pocomoke isn’t very interesting to the local State’s Attorney’s office.  But what if this were a felony accusation?

You know who can read Avvo?  Every prosecutor, police officer, probation agent, ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, town newspaper reporter, town gossip, pimp, prostitute, drug dealer, co-defendant, co-defendant’s defense lawyer (private or PD) and the stupidest trifling busybody friend and cousin of all of the above.  Make it a robbery case and not paraphernalia, and this is looking like Teh Big Stoopid really quickly.

The best advice that can be given to many of the inquirers is to get their business off of Avvo ASAP and to consult legal counsel – NOW.  I await a service that will collect, index and data mine stupid posts like these in order to get the occasional gem in critical criminal and civil cases; while there’s a lot of junk here, there is probably an occasional “Antique Roadshow” unexpected find too for the inquiring and diligent lawyer working a high stakes case.  I don’t know that law enforcement isn’t doing so.  If NSA is going to tap or trace phones, you can bloody bet that they can collect and collate something like NSA.  When will local police be able to do so efficiently, on their own or for a fee to a consultant in a big case? While it may not be admissible evidence in itself, it may lead to admissible evidence and who knows what sort of a subpoena a judge might authorize against Avvo upon receiving an officer’s “TKE” and affidavit with an attachment from that website?

I await the next gem to find its way into a divorce deposition: “I screwed around on my wife of 18 years twice, both times with a cutie from my church.  How likely is it that my wife can take my kids away from me in court if she finds out? I don’t make much as a minister of the Gospel here in Pocomoke City.”

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in commentary, Legal Ethics, Legal Marketing, Practice of Law, 0 comments