eNews

Board of Trustees Approves Scaling Plan for Fee Increase: The State Bar Board of Trustees met on May 17th and, among other actions, the Board authorized restructured fee-scaling options to expand reduced or waived licensing fee increases among attorneys whose incomes fall below certain thresholds. Read more

Last year, the California legislature passed S.B. 1343, which changed the rules on which employers in California have to provide sexual harassment training, and which employees have to receive that training. The changes mean that many small firms (those with 5 or more employees) will have to start providing sexual harassment training to their employees, and it must be provided by January 1, 2020. Cal. Govt. Code § 12950.1(a). Read more

Paying yourself from an IOLTA account is an important concept in law office management. An IOLTA account is a trust account used to hold money paid to you by a client until that money is earned. One of the most common reasons ethics complaints are filed against lawyers is mismanagement of an IOLTA account. Every jurisdiction has their own rules related to when (and how) an IOLTA should be opened, how it must be managed, and when you may pay yourself from that account. Some jurisdictions, including California, require lawyers to use an IOLTA even for flat fee services. Read more

A court may sanction attorneys for engaging in meritless actions or tactics with the intent to harass or cause unnecessary delay. CCP §128.5. But what is meritless to one person may be a rational extension of the law to another. Luckily, there’s a safe harbor provision in the statute for that. Read more

It's June already and this year is flying by. June means different things to different people; the start of summer vacation, the start of juggling work and kids on summer vacation, and mid-year business evaluations, to name a few. June is also celebrated as Pride month in honor of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of those riots, which many credit as the impetus for the LGBTQ+ Civil Rights movement (despite the formation of equality groups in the 1950s). Read more

Last month the LPMT, in conjunction with Santa Ana College hosted the 2nd Annual OC Legal Tech Conference in Santa Ana. We are pleased to report that we received great feedback about the program and speakers. If you were not able to attend and would like to see what you missed, the presentations will be available on our site very soon. Read more

The public and attorneys have an opportunity to submit written comments about policy issues before the Board of Trustees. These issues may include proposals such as revisions to the State Bar of California Model Rules of Procedure regarding arbitrator compensation and formal opinions regarding ethical obligations when departing a firm and ancillary business. Comments may be directed to the address listed on each proposal. Read more

Being busy has become a national obsession, and it certainly affects lawyers. We seem to have two speeds: frantic and fearful. We need to have a discussion about what might lie between these extremes, but an even more pressing question might be how to keep marketing going even when frantic. Read more

In 2019, cybersecurity is an issue that is — or should be — on the minds of lawyers in firms big and small. This is because lawyers have an ethical obligation to preserve the confidentiality of client information. And as lawyers increasingly move their data into digital format, that obligation necessarily shifts to the firm’s data stored online. Read more

San Francisco, long at the heart of the technology revolution, took a stand against potential abuse on May 14, 2019, by banning the use of facial recognition software by the police and other agencies. Read more