State Bar of Texas Blog : State Bar of Texas Blog : News & Features on Lawyers & Attorneys & Legal Professionals in Austin, Dallas, Houston & TX

The State Bar of Texas has established a disaster legal hotline – 800.504.7030 – to assist people with basic legal questions following the devastating plant explosion in West, Texas.

The hotline – answered in English and Spanish by Lone Star Legal Aid – is intended to help low-income persons affected by the disaster with such issues as replacing lost documents, insurance questions, landlord-tenant issues, and consumer protection issues such as price-gouging and avoiding contractor scams in the rebuilding process. Residents can call and leave a message any time. People who qualify for assistance will be matched with Texas lawyers who have volunteered to provide free, limited legal help. 

A partnership between the State Bar of Texas, Texas Young Lawyers Association, American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, Lone Star Legal Aid, local bar associations, and other legal services providers throughout Texas is making a range of assistance available.

Additional resources are available at www.texasbar.com/disasterresponse and www.texaslawhelp.org.

The State Bar of Texas reminds the public that solicitation of a potential legal case is a crime unless the lawyer has a family relationship with you or you have been a client of the lawyer in the past or are currently a client. Solicitation of you is also a crime if perpetrated by a non-lawyer employee or representative of the lawyer, unless the previous conditions exist. Please report any prohibited contacts by lawyers or their representatives, whether in person, telephone or otherwise, to your local law enforcement authority or the State Bar of Texas at 877.953.5535.

Attorneys who want to volunteer to help may visit our Disaster Relief and Attorney Resources page.

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The ABA Law Student Division needs 40 more lawyers and judges to participate as competition judges for the 2012-13 Negotiation Competition National Finals during the ABA Midyear Meeting February 8-9, 2013 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, TX. Specific times for the rounds are as follows:

Friday, February 8
Round 1: 8:30 am to 12:30 pm (30 judges needed)
Round 2: 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm (30 judges needed)

Saturday, February 9
Semifinal Round: 8:30 am to12:30 pm (20 judges needed)
Championship Round: 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm (5 judges needed)

Judges may earn CLE credit if their state CLE Board provides for credit via judging competitions. Texas lawyers may earn self study credit for judging this competition. Texas lawyers may report on their My Bar Page or annual verification report (the 9-digit code is not needed).

Lawyers interested in objectively evaluating the negotiation skills of the top 24 (out of 228) law student teams from across the country and giving them useful feedback are asked to select their round and supply their contact information on the form located at https://abanet.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8BPPZQ7Js8Lm4pD.

In this competition, two teams of student lawyers negotiate an agreement or settle a dispute between their clients. Competition judges evaluate the teams on how well they serve their clients’ needs.

This year’s topic is Small Business Ventures. Volunteers do not need previous competition judging experience, nor expertise in the subject matter.

Please direct questions to Peggy Pissarreck at 312-988-5621 or peggy.pissarreck@americanbar.org.

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The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 is pleased to release for comment, along with a Cover Memo from Co-Chairs Jamie S. Gorelick and Michael Traynor, revised drafts relating to inbound foreign lawyers.

The first two revised drafts describe possible amendments to ABA Model Rule 5.5 and to the ABA Model Rule for Registration of In-House Counsel. The third relates to the ABA Model Rule on Pro Hac Vice Admission.  

Your comments will assist the Commission in its consideration of these issues.

We look forward to hearing from you. Please e-mail your responses by October 12, 2012, to Senior Research Paralegal Natalia Vera at Natalia.Vera@americanbar.org. Comments and submissions may be posted to the Commission’s website. 

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Last night, April 17, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas was honored with a 2012 ABA Justice Award. Sen. Hutchison was honored for her efforts to preserve funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). She was instrumental in ensuring that the LSC budget was cut only 2 percent when others were calling for much deeper cuts. She is pictured here with the President of the ABA William T. Robinson III, ABA Day Chair William C. Hubbard, and members of the Texas delegation to ABA Days.

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Betty Balli Torres, executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation in Austin, has been recognized with the American Bar Association (ABA) Grassroots Advocacy Award. The award, which honors her efforts in securing legal aid funding and ensuring access to justice for low-income Americans, will be presented April 18 during a reception at the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Every day, families go without much-needed protection from abuse, benefits to which they are entitled, and they lose homes because they are unable to access the justice system due to inability to afford a lawyer," Torres said. "As lawyers, we each have a role to play to ensure that everyone has access to our judicial system. That access is not possible without critical funding of legal aid programs that do the day-to-day work and provide the infrastructure and support to thousands of lawyers doing pro bono work in this country."

Torres will receive one of five ABA Grassroots Advocacy Awards. Among the other recipients is the Texas Supreme Court, which is being recognized for its key role in obtaining funding for legal services during the last legislative session.

"The justices of the Supreme Court of Texas deserve special recognition for their outspoken support of legal services. Every community in Texas is a beneficiary of their dedication to equal access. The justices demonstrate yet again their commitment to be the ultimate guardians of our liberty,” said ABA President William T. "Bill" Robinson III.

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At its October 2011 meeting in Denver, Colorado, the Commission decided to bifurcate its presentation of proposals to the ABA House of Delegates to help facilitate that entity's considered action on a significant number of complex and diverse subjects. The Commission will present its first group of proposals in August 2012, and the second set in February 2013. The Commission currently plans to present its proposals relating to mobility issues, outsourcing, and technology in August 2012. The Commission will circulate one more time for comment the drafts of those proposals before it files them with the House of Delegates for consideration in August 2012.  It will do so after discussing at its February 2 - 3, 2012 meeting the recent comments and suggestions received, and after making any necessary revisions to the proposals based upon those comments. The Commission will hold a public hearing in at its February meeting. Details are forthcoming.

The remaining proposals, including those relating to Model Rule 1.7, inbound foreign lawyers, and, if the Commission decides to do so, any proposals relating to alternative law practice structures, will be presented in February 2013. 

On Dec. 2, consistent with the Commission's promise to provide opportunities for input, it published for comment a Cover Memo and Discussion Draft relating to alternative law practice structures. The Commission already has ruled out certain forms of nonlawyer ownership that currently exist in other countries. In particular, the Commission rejected: (a) publicly traded law firms, (b) outside nonlawyer investment or ownership in law firms, and (c) multidisciplinary practices (law firms that offer both legal and non-legal services separately in a single entity). This Discussion Draft relates to a very limited form of nonlawyer ownership in a law firm akin to, but more restrictive than, that which has been permitted for 21 years in the District of Columbia. Before deciding how to proceed, the Commission wants to receive your comments and review any supporting materials you may wish to offer.

The Commission also posted for comment a Cover Memo and Initial Draft Proposal relating to choice of law and alternative law practice structures. Choice of law issues will exist whether or not the Commission ultimately decides to propose any modification to the current prohibition in Model Rule 5.4 on any form of alternative law practice structure. The Commission has heard that lawyers and law firms would benefit from additional guidance in this regard, particularly given the proliferation of domestic and international cross-border practice and the fact that more countries where U.S. lawyers and law firms do business now permit alternative law practice structures (as does the District of Columbia).

The Commission encourages responses to the Discussion Draft and the Initial Draft Proposal by late January 2012, so that they can be discussed at the Commission's February 2-3, 2012 meeting, and further asks that those requiring additional time submit their comments by February 29, 2012.

The documents can be downloaded here [website].

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UPDATE 2: On Dec. 20, 2010, President Obama signed this provision into law.

UPDATE: On Dec. 7, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives also approved this legislation.

On Nov. 30, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Red Flag Program Clarification Act of 2010, which clarifies that the Federal Trade Commission's Red Flags Rule does not apply to lawyers, doctors, accountants, and certain other service providers. The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

The Red Flags Rule requires financial organizations and "creditors" to develop programs to prevent identity theft.

The Senate action comes after efforts by bar associations and other organizations to exempt professionals who maintain accounts for clients that generally do not carry risks of identity theft.

For background on this issue, see the American Bar Association website.

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Linda Addison, a partner in the Houston and New York offices of Fulbright & Jaworksi L.L.P., is one of five recipients of the 2009 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. This ABA award was established in 1991 to honor outstanding women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence and paved the way to success for others. Addison's honors and professional achievements are too numerous to list here, but she's a longtime contributor to the State Bar of Texas, in many roles. Other Margaret Brent honorees this year include Helaine M. Barnett, Judge Arnette R. Hubbard, Judge Vanessa Ruiz, and Loretta A. Tuell. Read more in the ABA's press release.

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Legal technologist Richard Susskind created a huge buzz among attendees of last week's ABA Techshow with his keynote speech about the future of the legal profession. Susskind's latest book, "The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services," foretells radical changes to business of law, including a commoditization of nearly every aspect of legal services aside from a lawyer's own expert judgment.

According to Susskind, in order to meet client demands of "more for less," lawyers will have to become much more efficient, which they'll do through commoditization of legal work and "multi-sourcing" (breaking up a legal matter into many pieces which are handled by different providers). They must also, says Susskind, learn to collaborate through community-based sharing of legal knowledge. Online social networking, he predicts, will dominate legal services.

Lawyers of the future will be project managers and risk managers, not "expert trusted advisors" as they're thought of today. Rather than frame his predictions with gloom and doom, Susskind emphasized that we're not near "the end of lawyers" but in a time of tremendous opportunity for those willing to innovate and approach work differently.

A free video of Susskind's keynote will be posted soon on the ABA Techshow website.

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