The Virginia State Bar Standing Committee on Legal Ethics hopes to spark more dialogue on proposed rules changes requiring lawyers to have some level of familiarity with modern technology as it affects their law practices. Because only six lawyers commented ...

Tagged with: Technology Virginia State Bar

A torrent of lawyer objections may have killed a plan to add email addresses and telephone numbers to lawyers’ official addresses of record with the Virginia State Bar. The VSB staff will recommend that the agency’s Executive Committee drop the ...

Tagged with: Virginia State Bar

Virginia lawyers would have an explicit duty to be familiar with modern computer technology and to avoid digital security blunders, under proposed changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Virginia State Bar is seeking comments on additions to two ...

Tagged with: Technology Virginia State Bar

Lawyers will not be in trouble with the Virginia State Bar for ghostwriting pleadings for pro se litigants, but they still have to use care about where those pleadings might be filed, under a new guidance from the bar. Overruling ...

Tagged with: Ethics Legal Ethics Opinion Virginia State Bar

A former Northern Virginia lawyer who repeatedly was sanctioned in his bankruptcy practice and attracted at least a dozen bar complaints before giving up his license now has pleaded guilty to trying to scam millions from clients and banks. Michael ...

Tagged with: Lawyer Discipline Virginia State Bar

A Bedford lawyer has been reprimanded by a Virginia State Bar disciplinary panel after a judge used blunt terms to disqualify the lawyer from a criminal case. Carter B. Garrett’s representation of a drug defendant facing trial presented “an actual ...

Tagged with: Criminal Federal Courts Judge Norman K. Moon Lawyer Discipline Virginia State Bar

VIRGINIA BEACH – Neither lawyers who want to leave a law firm nor those who remain would be able to contact the firm’s clients until the two sides have tried to forge a joint letter advising clients of the breakup, ...

Tagged with: Ethics Law Firms Rules of Professional Conduct Virginia State Bar

Following a 4-to-1 defeat in its effort to suspend a bankruptcy lawyer based on a similar sanction by a federal court, the Virginia State Bar is considering a rewrite of the rules for reciprocal discipline. The VSB Disciplinary Board in ...

Tagged with: Lawyer Discipline Virginia State Bar

A Richmond-area lawyer facing $177,000 in federal tax liens has agreed to a six-month suspension for using his attorney trust account as a regular operating account for his law practice, according to the Virginia State Bar. W. Stephen Coleman turned ...

Tagged with: Lawyer Discipline Richmond Circuit Court Virginia State Bar

Time wise, the Virginia State Bar’s TechShow on May 19 wasn’t exactly a swan song for VSB President Sharon Nelson, whose term continues into June. It was, however, a signature event for Nelson, a nationally recognized expert on law firm ...

Tagged with: Justice Cleo E. Powell Technology Virginia State Bar