Marital property agreement concerns remain

The prospective divorce client comes to your office with a marital agreement in hand. Well, that should ensure a quick and relatively painless end to that marriage, right? Not so fast.

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Criminal Law

In De Shaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U. S. 189 (1989), the U. S. Supreme Court held that the State did not have a constitutional duty...

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Cade seeks readers’ responses to ethical dilemmas

With the Labor Day holidays behind us (and with my editor bugging me about a column), I’ve been thinking about what scandalous things I should write about for this month, and, on Monday it hit me like a ton of bricks.

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Fed’s new mortgage rules won’t stop fraud

As the panic continues about the “subprime mortgage crisis,” pressure has been put on regulators to do something to stop mortgage fraud. The “crisis” has been blamed largely on corrupt mortgage brokers, and so last week the Federal Reserve adopted new mortgage regulations.

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Employment retaliation claims: A growth industry

Last year, for the first time, there were more retaliation charges filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) than sex discrimination charges. The number of retaliation claims filed in state and federal courts and agencies continues to climb. It is not unusual for employees to allege retaliation on top of underlying discrimination claims. And it is not unusual for employers who successfully defend against the discrimination claims to find it much harder to successfully fight off claims of retaliation.

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Lawyers offer clients your guarantee of commitment

No lawyer can ethically guarantee a result. To do so comes under Rule of Professional Conduct 7.1’s prohibition of false or misleading communication, which the ABA’s commentary says includes “lead[ing] a reasonable person to form an unjustified expectation” about results. However, lawyers can guarantee a certain degree of effort — which does not violate the code, because it deals with factors within the lawyer’s own control.

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State Bar battle reflects importance of image

I may be dipping my toe into scalding water here, but I find fascinating the battle over what the future holds for the State Bar.

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OpenOffice.org offers frugal alternative to Word

It seems that one of the world’s most unpopular people is Bill Gates. See YouTube’s “Bill Gates Runs Like a Girl,” or the Microsoft chairman taking a pie in the face.

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