Litigation
Cal. Litig. 2020, Volume 33, Number 2
Content
- A Long and Winding Road to Undo Bad Supreme Court Law
- Affirmative Action Quandaries the Affirmative Action Puzzle: a Living History from Reconstruction to Today (Pantheon:322 Pages) By Melvin I. Urofsky
- Editor's Foreword Sweet Successes — On or About 31 Flavors
- From Cla's Ceo a Personal Plea for Addressing the Root Causes of Racism
- From the Section Chair News for a New World
- Insurance Coverage Analysis Avoids Malpractice Landmines
- Intellectual Property Litigation and Other Updates in the Video Game Industry as of April 2020
- Masthead
- Navigating the New Settled Statement Procedures
- Nuts and Bolts of Videoconference Dispute Resolution in the Time of Covid-19
- Recent Legislative Changes Affect Long-Standing Pre-Trial Discovery Practice
- Showing Lack of Probable Cause: Plaintiff's Burden of Proof in Opposing an Anti-Slapp Motion Attacking a Malicious Prosecution Claim
- Stringfellow Acid Pits: the Toxic and Legal Legacy By Brian Craig
- Table of Contents
- That Family Is Wrong for You: Religious Objections Before the Supreme Court
- The Puzzle of Precedent in the California Court of Appeal
- MCLE Article Threats, Extortion and Legitimate Advocacy
MCLE ARTICLE Threats, Extortion and Legitimate Advocacy
By Mark L. Tuft
Mark Tuft is a partner with Cooper, White & Cooper LLP in San Francisco specializing in legal malpractice law and is a co-author of the Rutter Group Practice Guide on Professional Responsibility. MTuft@cwclaw.com.
Recent cases highlight the need for litigators to clearly understand the difference between aggressive advocacy and conduct amounting to extortion and prohibited threats. Clients should be able to hire aggressive lawyers and expect them to pursue available means for achieving the clients’ objectives. Litigators wishing to preserve their right to practice law, on the other hand, need to know the parameters of legitimate advocacy and cannot abide uncertainty when it comes to distinguishing aggressive tactics from impermissible threats and extortion.