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Search Warrants, Confidentiality, and More

April 15, 2018

Search Warrants, Confidentiality, and More

That Client

In Donald J. Trump, Goner I promised some “basic facts about attorney-client privilege and attorney confidentiality issues.”* The promise grew out of the extraordinary search warrants directed to premises controlled by Michael Cohen, an attorney who does work for President Donald J. Trump.

Extraordinary search warrants? Yes. Mr. Cohen does have a license to practice law, and the warrants relate broadly to that client of his I mentioned previously.

Judges issue search warrants. Routinely.** Judges reject warrant requests rarely and, only slightly more often, they will modify them. So, the fact that warrants issued does not, alone, make them extraordinary.

So, why extraordinary? Mr. Cohen’s law license, and that client I mentioned.

attorney-client privilege, Karen McDougal, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump, search warrants, Stormy Daniels

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Donald J. Trump, Goner

April 13, 2018

Mark Rubin

Donald J. Trump, Goner

donald j. trump, goner

I have a PredictIt account. PredictIt offers legalized betting on political events. Fun it is, and it’s legal because smart people study the predictive power of crowds.

Whether “Donald Trump shall be president of the United States at 11:59:59 p.m. (ET) on December 31, 2018” is the bet, and I have the No position. (The rules are very precise.) If I cashed out now my profit pays for most of a night on the town with LB, which includes drinks, shared fish and chips, tax and the large tip at our neighborhood bar. And If I hang on and he’s gone by the time the ball drops next in Times Square I’ll be the smiling guy,

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Confidentiality, Attorneys and Prospective Clients

March 27, 2018

Mark Rubin

Confidentiality, Attorneys and Prospective Clients

Mark Rubin

On August 17, 2014 I posted Professional Responsibility; Confidentiality. Confidentiality represents a core part of the attorney-client relationship. Too often, unfortunately, we—yes, attorneys—ignore it or don’t understand it.

Plainly and simply: matters belong to clients, and not to their attorneys.* I work for you. The Rules of Professional Conduct and other sources set standards for me. And one of those standards—set forth in E(thical) R(ule) 1.6—tells me I can’t reveal “information relating to the representation of a client” without your consent. (There are several exceptions. They’re discussed in the 2014 piece, and not relevant here.)

“Information relating to the representation of the client” includes the very fact that an attorney-client relationship

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Pardon!

June 16, 2017

Mark Rubin

Pardon!

Mr. President

Lots and lots of words, written and spoken about Mueller, Rosenstein, Russia, and Trump. Most of what we read and hear focuses on who can fire whom, and whether when the firings will happen. In and amongst the noise, though, we get plenty of “there’s no evidence” and “firing Mueller will destroy Trump.”

Bad frames. People, the Watergate break-in happened on June 17, 1972, 45 years ago, to the day. We live in a different world. To the “no evidence” crowd, evidence exists—or not—and we find out about it through investigations. They take time! Reading tweets, watching the news, and knowing the basics does not qualify you to say evidence does or does not exist to support a …

John Rhodes, President Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein

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Attorneys (and Others) as Risk Managers.

February 22, 2017

Mark Rubin

Law, The Rest of Everything

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Abraham Lincoln on Law

May 30, 2016

Mark Rubin

The 150th anniversary of the Civil War (five years ago), Memorial Day (which tracks back to Decoration Day, dedicated to honoring those who died in the Civil War) and the notion that Donald Trump might be our 45^th President of the United States of America, brought to mind Abraham Lincoln. Before he went to work for the federal government in 1861, Mr. Lincoln was a very accomplished attorney. Notes for a Law Lecture, dated July 1, 1850, may or may not have been used in a lecture, but they have survived for more than 165 years.

Age aside, the Notes are worthy of attention for attorneys and non-attorneys, for Mr. Lincoln focuses on four major, timeless themes:

Abraham Lincoln, lawsuits

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2015 Elections

October 15, 2015

Mark Rubin

Believe it or not, what with all of the noise—and so much of it is just that, noise—about the 2016 elections, we have a substantial number of elections in the Tucson metro area on November 3, 2015. I don’t often comment on local matters, but I’m making an exception tonight/today.

Before I proceed, I need to bring up name-dropping. You’ll see references to several people in my comments, along with disclosures about my relationships. I’m not bragging on who I know, truly. Because I’m a lawyer ethics jock, I don’t have it in me not to disclose any and all information someone ought to know.

The Tucson City Council has three seats on the ballot, and Mayor Jonathan Rothschild is

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Mark Rubin

August 29, 2015

Mark Rubin

Eating sushi with Cate Rubin in Midtown West, New York City, circa May 2014

I have been practicing law in Tucson for almost 37 years. I do:

Business and Real Estate Litigation, Transactions, and Counseling
Estate Planning, Probate, and Fiduciary Services
Legal Malpractice, Ethics, and State Bar Discipline and Admissions proceedings

I am also a Licensed Fiduciary (License No. 20546), which allows me to serve as a guardian/ conservator, personal representative (executor), or trustee. My fiduciary practice focuses on cases involving difficult family situations or complex business and real estate assets.

I am also General Counsel for Pima Medical Institute. PMI, in business for more than 40 years, provides post-graduate vocational training in the allied health sector. I have

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Mark Rubin, Tucson Attorney

June 13, 2015

Mark Rubin

I thought I had a post which explained what I do as a Tucson attorney. Using an Attorney Effectively and Working (Mark Rubin) don’t quite nail the issue, and About Mark Rubin doesn’t either.

My practices falls within three broad areas. They are: (a) probate and fiduciary matters, and estate planning; (b) business and real estate, including advising, documenting transactions, and handling lawsuits; and (c) ethics, professionalism, and discipline.

In the probate and fiduciary world, there’s lots of paper and process. Probate involves the affairs of people who have died, as well as young people with money or no parents, or both, and older people who need help because of mental or physical infirmities. There’s paper and process because we

attorney, discipline, ethics, Licensed Fiduciary, probate, real estate, Tucson

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Attorney Fees

April 14, 2015

Mark Rubin

Attorney Fees – 4/14/2015

We’re going to discuss attorney fees today, because I heard Big Bills: A Hidden Side Effect Of Cancer Treatment by Sarah Jane Tribble on NPR this morning. The story relates to cancer treatment and cost, and focuses in part on the lack of meaningful discussion between doctors and patients about cost.

So what does the doctor-patient conversation about fees have to do with attorney fees? It’s not “pick on doctors week” hear at MRW, although in too many instances I have not seen a meaningful appreciation for cost in the doctor-patient relationship. Instead, the story prompted me to think about the attorney-client discussion.

Generally, I think the legal profession does a good job of disclosing fees

attorney fees

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