Attorney Discipline: Does Time in Practice Count?

When sanctioning lawyers who have violated the rules, ethics regulators typically consider a set of aggravating circumstances that can increase the punishment, as well as a list of mitigating factors that may reduce it. These factors may include prior discipline, or lack thereof; harm, or lack of harm, to clients; or extreme mental or physical duress on the attorney's part at the time of the misconduct. Not every state agrees, however, on how to treat the attorney's length of time in practice. Should mature attorneys have known better and thus be sanctioned more harshly? Or having gone so long in practice without discipline, should they be cut a break? This lack of agreement among the states raises an interesting question ... READ MORE

Originally published April 30, 2014 0 1