Ethics Update for Virginia Lawyers 2018 (Online Seminar)

A pre-recorded streaming video replay from the April 2018 webcast, Ethics Update for Virginia Lawyers 2018.

Legal ethics is now one of the most dynamic and difficult areas of law. Every year, there are significant changes to and new interpretations of existing ethics rules, all of which can profoundly affect your daily practice. This seminar will help you keep up to date and will help you avoid potential ethics traps.

TOPIC AGENDA

Review of the Most Significant Disciplinary Cases from the Past Year, Plus Rule and Procedural Changes

• Disciplinary statistics and the Client Protection Fund
• Competency, neglect and abandonment of client matters, failure to communicate
• Fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation
• Trust account and fee issues
• Noncompliance with terms
• Criminal conduct and convictions
• Impairment investigations and receiverships
• Appeals

Hot Topics in the Law of Ethics

• Proposed comment [7] to Rule 1.1 (Competence) regarding lawyers’ physical, mental, and emotional well-being as a component of competent representation
• Proposed LEO 1889—Duty of court-appointed lawyer to appeal termination of parental rights orders
• Lawyer advertising and marketing in the digital age: Virginia’s new advertising rules and enforcement protocol
• ABA Formal Opinion 477R regarding the circumstances in which there may be a duty to use encrypted e-mail when communicating with clients
• Rule 1.9(c) and ABA Formal Opinion 479 regarding a lawyer’s public disclosure of “generally known” information relating to the representation of a former client
• The newly amended emeritus membership rule
• The new voluntary pro bono reporting rule

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Edward L. Davis, Virginia State Bar / Richmond

Edward L. Davis has been bar counsel for the Virginia State Bar since 2008.  He supervises the VSB Department of Professional Regulation charged with enforcing the disciplinary and unauthorized practice of law rules by the Supreme Court of Virginia, training and educating members of the bar, and recommending improvements to the disciplinary system.  He reports to the VSB executive director and the Standing Committee on Lawyer Discipline.  He served as an assistant bar counsel since 1993.  Before coming to the bar, he served six years in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and he was deputy commonwealth’s attorney for York County and the city of Poquoson.  From 1991 to 1993, he had a general practice with Stuart A. Simon & Associates in Richmond, with a focus on criminal defense and domestic relations law.  Mr. Davis retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in January 2009 with the rank of colonel.  He holds a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary, a law degree from the University of Richmond, and a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College. 

William E. Glover, Glover and Dahnk / Fredericksburg

Bill Glover is partner at Glover and Dahnk. He was formerly partner with Roberts Sokol Ashby and Jones. He was Assistant Commonwealth Attorney for the City of Fredericksburg from 1987-1988. He is a graduate of Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and Mary. He is a member of the Virginia Bar Council and was on the Executive Committee in 2016-2017. He was on the board of the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Committee and the Virginia State Bar Standing Committee on Lawyer Discipline. He is also a former President of the Fredericksburg Area Bar Association.

James M. McCauley, Virginia State Bar / Richmond

James M. McCauley is the Ethics Counsel for the Virginia State Bar. He serves as staff liaison to the Virginia State Bar’s Standing Committee on Legal Ethics and manages the staff in the Legal Ethics Department and the Legal Ethics Hotline. Mr. McCauley served on the faculty of the Virginia State Bar’s Mandatory Professionalism Course from 2004-2010. Mr. McCauley teaches Professional Responsibility at the T.C. Williams School of Law in Richmond, Virginia and served on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Ethics and Professionalism from 2008-2011.  He serves on the Planning Committee for the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility Annual Conference and the Lawyer Advertising Committee for the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers.  Mr. McCauley is a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation and American Bar Foundation.