{"id":3744,"date":"2005-04-08T12:59:03","date_gmt":"2005-04-08T16:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2005\/04\/08\/ethics-aside\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:57:49","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:57:49","slug":"ethics-aside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2005\/04\/08\/ethics-aside\/","title":{"rendered":"“ethics aside”"},"content":{"rendered":"

J<\/strong><\/em>ust as Prof. Yabut decried the <\/span>abuse of ellipses<\/span><\/a>, f\/k\/a<\/em>‘s editor emeritus<\/span> ethicalEsq<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span> is getting a little annoyed by the “ethics aside<\/em>” approach of the gurus and evangelists<\/span> of law firm branding, marketing and alternative or value pricing. They offer the easily-<\/span>tempted lawyer a paradise of premium clients and fees, with increased profits, while<\/span> never probing the ethical and fiduciary duties of the lawyer to insure that the client is<\/span> fully informed, treated fairly (and without manipulation) and, in the end, charged a fee<\/span> that is reasonable for competent and diligent services.<\/span> Yesterday, AdamSmith Esq<\/em>‘s <\/span>Bruce MacEwan reminded<\/span><\/a> his readers, in a post<\/span> about marketing (pointed to by <\/span>Lisa Stone<\/span><\/a>), that<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

“a core conviction of mine is that — cultural considerations aside<\/em>,<\/span> admittedly a large “aside” — the business of law firms is not fundamentally<\/span> different from the business of corporations.” (emphasis added)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"honest\" Yes, law firms do have a different “culture” than business corporations, and<\/span> much<\/em> of that difference has to do with professional ethics. But, there appears to be <\/span><\/span> little chance that Bruce will ever get to this “aside”. Earlier this year, he made it clear:<\/span> “this blog, I will remind you again, is not about ethics, <\/em>it’s about economics<\/em>.” [As<\/span> Church Lady<\/span><\/a> used to say, “Isn’t that special<\/em>?” — and convenient.]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

turning over in bed–<\/span>
\nmove aside!<\/span>
\nkatydid <\/span><\/p>\n

…………….. by Kobayashi Issa<\/a>, translated by David G. Lanoue<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“<\/span>Aside<\/span><\/a>” means “Out of one’s thoughts or mind” and “Set out of the way; dispensed with.” <\/span> (Am. Heritage Dictionary, <\/em>2000) I don’t think our ethical and fiduciary duties should<\/em><\/span><\/span> be set <\/strong>aside when dealing with how we attract clients or set fees. See the Intro to the <\/span>ABA Statement on <\/span>Principles in Billing for Legal Services<\/span><\/a> (1996) for some straight-<\/span>talk and pointers on the issues. We covered some of the relevant issues earlier this week <\/span>in <\/span>LexThink about higher fees (er, value billing)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. Those who are advocates of “modern” <\/span>
\nmarketing and pricing methods for attorneys have a duty<\/em> to put the ethical issues front and<\/span> center. If they, and those who are so eager to follow them to higher profits, need a place <\/span>to start, they might take a look at some of our prior posts — or read them again with our<\/span> ethical duties in mind. For example:<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>brand Lex<\/span><\/a> (branding to permit premium pricing and reduce price elasticity)<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>chronomentrophobia<\/span><\/a> (hourly billing is not the problem)<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>value billing or venal bilking?<\/span><\/a> (what is value billing? what should it be?)<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>fees and the lawyer-fiduciary<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>jackal sequel<\/span><\/a> (image-making rather than quality as the basis for higher fees) <\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>fee fie foe and fum<\/span><\/a> (change values first)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth repeating what I said two days ago, after LexThink: “I am all for modernizing the law<\/span> firm and the lawyer-client relationship — so long as it is a tool for better serving the client’s<\/span> interests, rather than one that merely uses modern selling techniques and technology to<\/span> artificially increase lawyer fees and profits and to stave off the democratizing effects in the <\/span>legal services marketplace of the digital revolution.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

move aside<\/span><\/span>
\ncloud and fog!<\/span><\/span>
\nlotuses are blooming<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n


\nbaby sparrow
\nmove aside!
\nMr. Horse passe<\/span><\/span>s<\/p>\n


\n<\/span>\"honest\" <\/span><\/em><\/span>– from <\/span>The Haiku of Kobayashi ISSA<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span> translated by David G. Lanoue<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just as Prof. Yabut decried the abuse of ellipses, f\/k\/a‘s editor emeritus ethicalEsq is getting a little annoyed by the “ethics aside” approach of the gurus and evangelists of law firm branding, marketing and alternative or value pricing. They offer the easily-tempted lawyer a paradise of premium clients and fees, with increased profits, while never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-Yo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13274,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions\/13274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}