The VLW Blog

Because of a forecast for a massive snow storm, the 40th annual criminal law seminar scheduled for tomorrow in Charlottesville has been canceled. It will not be rescheduled in Charlottesville but those who registered for it may transfer to the seminar on Feb. 12 in Williamsburg or sign up for a video replay. Further information [...]

[Read more →]

Virginia Supreme Court Justice Cynthia D. Kinser dissented today as the court agreed to additions to the Virginia State Bar’s governance aimed at promoting diversity.
The amendments to the court’s rules give the chair of the VSB’s new diversity conference a seat on the Bar Council. The changes also add diversity promotion to the Council’s list [...]

[Read more →]

Supreme Court Justice Barbara Milano Keenan will keynote this year’s annual Bench-Bar Dinner in Celebration of Women and Minorities in the Legal Profession, put on by the Virginia State Bar Young Lawyers Conference.
The dinner will be held next Monday, Jan. 25, at the Bull & Bear Club in downtown Richmond.
The event will [...]

[Read more →]

The Virginia State Bar Committee on Legal Ethics has trouble imagining a circumstance when sex with a client would not be a violation of legal ethics but stops short of finding such a relationship to be unethical per se in Legal Ethics Opinion 1853.
After outlining the manifold ethical problems created by having sex with a [...]

[Read more →]

The Virginia State Bar Council endorsed payee notification this afternoon on a 39-25 vote.
The vote was a sharp turnaround from a 54-7 rejection of the concept two years ago. That vote came before full disclosure of the extent of the thefts by disbarred Woodbridge lawyer Stephen Conrad, which one council member described as “a cosmic [...]

[Read more →]

An allegation of an ethical violation by the director of the capital litigation unit for the Virginia attorney general’s office has been dismissed at the request of the lawyer appointed to prosecute the case.
The charge against Katherine Baldwin Burnett stemmed from a letter drafted more than a decade ago that the AG’s office suggested that [...]

[Read more →]

George W. Shanks, an attorney in Luray, says he wants to be president of the Virginia State Bar in 2011-12.
So far, he is the only candidate for the position of president-elect designate. Lawyers who have been members of the VSB Council for two of the previous five years are eligible for the position.
Candidates have until [...]

[Read more →]

What if nobody wanted to be president of the Virginia State Bar?
You get there by submitting a petition with 50 names on it by Oct. 1 to be the president-elect designate 21 months before your term as president would begin. If more than one candidate files a petition, an election is conducted by a ballot [...]

[Read more →]

The Virginia State Bar is posting a warning about an e-mail scam targeting Virginia lawyers.
According to the advisory, a law firm is approached through e-mail with what appears to be a legitimate business opportunity.  Almost always, the deal eventually involves an apparently valid check being deposited into the firm’s trust account, with payment then being [...]

[Read more →]

ALPS, the legal malpractice insurance carrier endorsed by the Virginia State Bar, is buying Southern Title Insurance Corp.
Both firms are privately held and details of the stock purchase agreement were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in early July.
“We are always looking for ways that we can help lawyers in Virginia practice better [...]

[Read more →]