Two courts in Canada recently dealt with excessive legal fees charged for performing legal research and found out that computer-assisted legal research is a necessity for the contemporary practice of law but shall be carried out with competence. In both Cass v. Ontario and Drummond v. Cadillac the Ontario Superior Court commented on artificial intelligence and […]
On September 19, 2016, the Oklahoma Supreme Court amended the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct. Among the other amendments, a specific duty to remain “tech-savvy” was introduced as part of lawyers’ duty of competency. According to the approved text to maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law […]
Based on a hypothetical situation in which an attorney – mistakenly believing that the existing clawback agreement is broader than it is and would allow recovery of inadvertently produced material – agrees with opposing counsel that his client’s database could be searched with search terms that the opposing counsel suggests. Attorney does not review material […]
Tags: ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE, LAWYERS' DUTY OF COMPETENCY, LAWYERS' DUTY OF CONFIDENTIALITY
Concerned about the ethical propriety of researching the venire? Perhaps lawyers should be equally concerned about failing to employ investigative tactics to aid in jury selection. New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2012-2 illustrates this issue: “Just as the internet and social media appear to facilitate juror misconduct, the same tools have expanded an attorney’s […]
Tags: LAWYERS' DUTY OF COMPETENCY, LAWYERS' USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS
Concerned about the ethical propriety of researching the venire? Perhaps lawyers should be equally concerned about failing to employ investigative tactics to aid in jury selection. New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2012-2 illustrates this issue: “Just as the internet and social media appear to facilitate juror […]
From the ABA Section of Litigation 2013 Annual Conference Conclusion: “The message of these ethics opinions is clear: lawyers and law firms can engage third-party vendors in the cloud to store confidential information but they must do so competently with adequate supervision and implement reasonable steps to protect the confidentiality of the data. When […]
Tags: CLIENT FILES, CLOUD COMPUTING, DATA PROTECTION, LAWYERS' DUTY OF COMPETENCY, LAWYERS' DUTY OF CONFIDENTIALITY, US PRIVACY
April 10, 2020, the Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility of the Pennsylvania Bar Association issued, Formal Opinion 2020-300 “Ethical Obligations For Lawyers Working Remotely” The Committee noticed that When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf ordered all “non-essential businesses,” including law firms to close their offices during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also ordered all persons […]
On November 7, 2019, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) [i] issued the Guidelines on the concepts of controller, processor and joint controllership under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (“Guidelines”). As a background, Regulation (EU) 2018/1725[ii] (“Regulation”) applies to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. The Guidelines aim at providing […]
On January 29, 2019, the French Data Protection Agency, the Commission Nationale de l’informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) imposed a fine of 50 million Euros on Google LLC under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for failure to (i) provide information to users configuring their Android mobile device and creating a Google account in breach of […]
On May 8, 2019, the Brussel’s Court of Appeal referred certain questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to ensure that the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA) can pursue the case against Facebook also after the GDPR entered into force. In particular, the questions is whether the one-stop shop mechanism (which […]