The VLW Blog

The Virginia State Bar Criminal Law Section presented its 2012 Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award last week to Alexandria Public Defender Melinda Douglas.
The award was presented on Feb. 3 during the section’s 42nd Annual Criminal Law Seminar in Williamsburg.
The award is named for the former Virginia Supreme Court chief justice who promoted the ideals of [...]

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A police officer is talking to a criminal defendant when the defendant offers some information and asks about a plea deal. The officer calls the commonwealth’s attorney’s office and asks if he can talk to the defendant about some horse trading.
The request should set off ethical alarm bells for the prosecutor who takes that call, [...]

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Virginia State Bar president George Shanks says he plans to make study of foreign government issues a regular part of the bar’s annual mid-year seminars.
Writing from Athens, Greece, Shanks said he hopes an annual “Rule of Law Conference” will become a centerpiece of future VSB-sponsored trips.
Future conference planners have a tough act to follow. In [...]

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Lawyers on a Virginia State Bar excursion to Athens are watching history in the making, with a possible change in that country’s government coming today.
Besides earning CLE credits and visiting antiquities, the Virginia barristers reportedly have set up a panel discussion with Greek parliament members and lawyers to discuss the rule of law.
“Amazing opportunity” is [...]

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Internet-savvy lawyers are closely watching a Virginia State Bar disciplinary case set for hearing next week involving the right of an attorney to blog about his cases without posting an advertising disclaimer.
Richmond lawyer Horace F. Hunter – armed with a brief penned by First Amendment scholar Rodney Smolla – faces a VSB district committee hearing [...]

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Sharon Nelson, a Fairfax lawyer and president of a computer forensics and information security company, will be the Virginia State Bar’s new president-elect.
Nelson filed her petition for the post at the VSB’s annual meeting in Virginia Beach this past June. As of the Oct. 1 deadline, no opponents had stepped forward.
Nelson will be sworn in [...]

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Virginia Beach attorney John W. Hart has surrendered his license to practice law rather than face allegations that he misappropriated more than $85,000.
According to Virginia State Bar documents, Hart became trustee of an irrevocable trust in 2004 and misappropriated at least $50,000 from the trust, although the total amount of the misappropriation is not yet [...]

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York County Commonwealth’s Attorney Eileen M. Addison accepted today a public reprimand from the Virginia State Bar for failing to acknowledge a tentative plea agreement with a key witness during a murder trial in April 2007.
That resolution of allegations that she had violated Rules of Professional Conduct had been pending since March 14, when [...]

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The Virginia State Bar’s Standing Committee on Legal Ethics again has tweaked its proposed revisions of the rules that govern lawyer advertising.
The most substantive change is elimination of an earlier proposal to require lawyers to retain copies of their electronic advertising for a year. Ethics Counsel Jim McCauley said the committee received many comments that [...]

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The Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board has issued its formal order recommending denial of Del. Joe Morrissey’s petition for reinstatement of his law license.
The order restates at considerably greater length – 63 pages to be exact – the findings Board Chairman William E. Glover announced back in May at the end of a two-day hearing [...]

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