California State Bar declares RPC 1.1 duty of tech competence, expands RPC 5.4 non-profit fee sharing rules      Rule 1.1 addresses a lawyer duty of technical competence, and 5.4 declares that attorneys fees from a settlement – not simply court-awarded fees – may be shared with a non-profit….

Source: OTHERWISE: California State Bar declares RPC 1.1 duty of tech competence, expands RPC 5.4 non-profit fee sharing rules

Contrary to several other states, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics holds that a lawyer who “cc’s” a client impliedly consents to his/her client receiving any replies directly.  – GWC

Source: OTHERWISE: NJ ACPE Opinion 739: RPC 4.2 – Lawyers Who Include Clients on Group Emails and Opposing Lawyers Who ‘Reply All

She spent seven years and much of her retirement savings to prove that a teenager had been wrongly convicted of murder. 

Source: OTHERWISE: Priscilla Read Chenoweth – lawyer, editor, crusader, dies at 90 – NY Times

Priscilla Read Chenoweth was the most widely read lawyer in New Jersey for many years.  Her weekly precis of new decisions made the New Jersey Law Journal essential reading.  But she was also an impassioned advocate.  A passion she passed on to her daughter Lesley who, with her husband Michael Risinger leads Seton Hall’s Last Resort exoneration project. – gwc

Meet The Voting Rights Heavy-Hitters That Biden Has Picked To Lead DOJ | Talking Points Memo By Tierney Sneed – February 25, 2021 President …

Source: OTHERWISE: Meet The Voting Rights Heavy-Hitters That Biden Has Picked To Lead DOJ | Talking Points Memo

By Tierney Sneed – February 25, 2021

President Biden has chosen for top positions at the Justice Department three advocates who have spent their lifetimes in the civil rights arena and the last four years in particular combatting the Trump-era’s most egregious assaults on democracy.

 

When then-President Trump put forward judicial nominees who had shown hostility to voting rights, Vanita Gupta organized the civil rights community pushback that helped sink the confirmations of at least two of them.

When the administration stood up a sketchy “election integrity” commission to validate Trump’s false voter fraud claims, Kristen Clarke spearheaded one of the early legal challenges that contributed to the panel’s eventual demise.

And when Trump hijacked the U.S. foreign policy apparatus to smear his 2020 presidential opponent, Pamela Karlan testified in House impeachment proceedings about the implications that gambit had for democracy.

Now all three have been selected for key DOJ positions from which they can revitalize the department’s role in the voting rights space — at a time when the threats to democratic participation are historically daunting.