Legal Ethics Forum

Joint Defense Agreements and Michael Flynn

The New York Times just sent out an alert (here) with the following headline:

A Split From Trump Indicates That Flynn Is Moving to Cooperate With Mueller

The story includes this information about legal ethics:

... Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.

The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Some lawyers withdraw from information-sharing arrangements as soon as they begin negotiating with prosecutors. And such negotiations sometimes fall apart.  [Emphasis added.]

Do criminal defense lawyers abide by these restrictions?  What are the consequences if they do not?  Anyway, it's always good to see the Times talking about conflicts and ethics.

The Case of the Vanishing Peer Reviewer

[Cross-posted, with a slight change, from The Faculty Lounge]

As I explained in a recent post,BMJ published a "Best Practice" guide last July that pretty much repudiated the psychosocial model ME/CFS that has been dominant in the U.K. Although I did not mention it here, one of the most intriguing aspects of the guide was that Dr. Peter White, an emeritus professor of psychological medicine Queen Mary University London, was one of the peer reviewers.  White was one of the principal investigators in the PACE trial -- which has been discredited in the U.S. but still respected in the U.K. -- and a leading proponent of "reversing" ME/CFS through psychotherapy and graded exercise.  The BMJ Best Practice guide, however, rejected that approach, so it was quite a surprise to see White's name among the peer reviewers.  Of course, approving a monograph for publication does not necessarily imply agreement with its conclusions, and it is possible that White's review had been negative, but, as David Tuller and I said on the Virology Blog, White still deserved credit for reviewing a guide so contrary to his own life's work.

Now the mystery:  At some point between the initial publication in July and last week, White's name was removed from the list of peer reviewers on the on-line version of the Best Practice guide.  No correction, no explanation, no update, no retraction.  His name is just gone.

Well, White either peer reviewed the monograph or he didn't.  If he did, then his name should remain on the list, even if he is unhappy with the ultimate publication.  If he didn't, and the original listing was in error, then there should be a correction rather than an erasure.  If White believes that his inclusion somehow validates the guide -- with which he no doubt disagrees -- then perhaps a "dissent" could be noted. But simply removing his name seems Orwellian.

Readers of this blog probably have little interest in the names behind the ME/CFS developments, but there is an underlying issue here of standards in academic publishing.  While it may be fine to edit or correct on-line publications, it strikes me as deeply wrong to make such a major revision -- really, changing the history of the publication -- without any acknowledgement whatsoever.

David Tuller is pursuing the question with BMJ Publishing and other sources, and I will post updates as his investigation progresses.