Legal ethics odds and ends (September 22, 2011)

• At My Shingle, Carolyn Elefant takes a critical look at a new site for lawyers, AttorneyFee.com.

• In this 25-minute lecture, Prof Stephen Carter asks, "Is Civility Important?" He's not talking about legal ethics per se, but his observations certainly are germane to our field's discsussions of the importance (or not) of civility.  (H/t: Volokh)

• Daily Tribune (Mich): A Michigan lawyer faces a disciplinary hearing about a sexual relationship with a client that occurred ten years ago. The lawyer's lawyer says that that "while lawyers who take sexual advantage of clients are clearly subject to professional discipline, an attorney involved in a bona fide long-term romantic relationship with a client that happens to begin during the course of an attorney-client relationship is not."  The state bar says that the client "was undergoing therapy for mental and verbal abuse suffered during her marriage, and was in an emotionally vulnerable state.”

• New York Judicial Ethics Opinion 10-36: "A judge who has received information about possible criminal activities by an attorney whose identity is unknown to the judge has no obligation to determine the attorney's identity for the purpose of reporting the attorney to the disciplinary committee."

• Metropolitan News Enterprise: California's Committee on Bar Examiners is seeking to bar the admission of Stephen Glass, the disgraced journalist who fabricated stories for The New Republic.  Everyone agrees that his prior conduct was wrongful, but the State Bar Court sided with Glass in ruling that his present character is fit for practice.