Office of Bar Counsel

• Jurisdiction: Wyoming,United States
• Citation: Vol. 38 No. 2 Pg. 12
• Publication year: 2015
• Pages: 12
• Year: 2015

Office of Bar Counsel Vol. 38 No. 2 Pg. 12 Wyoming Bar Journal April, 2015

Mark W. Gifford Bar Counsel.

Ethics Hotline Heats Up

With increasing (and welcome) frequency, Wyoming practitioners are taking advantage of the Wyoming State Bar’s Ethics Hotline. I am now receiving approximately two dozen calls and emails every week from lawyers who are seeking guidance on how to deal in an ethical way with a situation or circumstance they’ve encountered in their practice.

The issues raised in these calls run the gamut from conflicts of interest (Do I have one? If so, can it be waived? How do I go about doing that?) to file retention (What are my obligations before I start shredding old files?). A lawyer realizes that her client lied in a deposition and wants to know how she should deal with that. A lawyer needs to withdraw and wants to know how much he can or should tell the court. There are frequent questions about fee arrangements, advertising and trust accounts.

Helping lawyers figure out the answers to these questions is the best part of my job. Almost...