Integrating the Heck out of Your Software; Lame Legal Ethics Rules; & “Questionable Ethics”

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

It’s the Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia, with guest Jayne Reardon. We play a round of questionable ethics, and then it’s time for what you’ve really come for. Jared teaches card games. No one will willingly play with you, but first your host Jared Correia.

Jared Correia:

That’s right. It’s time again for the Legal Toolkit podcast where it’s almost unethical not to listen. And yes, it’s still called the Legal Toolkit podcast, even though I have no clue what a socket wrench is, I feel like it’s got to have something to do with lighting, right? I’m your host, Jared Correia. You’re stuck with me because Plato was unavailable. Yes, the philosopher Plato, he was busy contemplating the forms and also perfecting his formula for a moldable clay for children. We’ll see where that all goes, huh? I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and bar associations. Find us [email protected]. Now, before we get to our interview today about the lameness of some all, no, just some of the legal ethics rules with Jayne Rearden from Fisher Broils, I wanted to take a moment to discuss some software integration options.

Okay? I want to talk about software integrations, which I’ve touched upon at the pod in previous episodes, but I want to do something a little bit different. So let me talk to you quickly about how these things work. I’m talking about software integrations. I’m only talking about cloud softwares really, for the most part, at least in the context of this discussion, where multiple or at least two softwares can be connected. Let’s say I want features of one software in another tool I’m using, or I want to be able to push information back and forth from one system to another, or I want to trigger an action in one system by taking an activity in another. I can do that stuff and more through software integration. So not to get too technical with this, but there are three types of software integrations. There’s the direct integration, which is two companies have said, Hey, we want to work together.

We’re going to allow our softwares to communicate in some direct fashion, and that’s built on the APIs that those companies have developed, which basically makes integrations possible. Then there are indirect integrations where maybe two companies haven’t decided to work together, they haven’t built integrations for each other, or there’s not one integration incoming to one system, and you need a third party bridging tool to make that happen. That’s possible too. There are products like Zapier or Make, which have their own APIs and effectively allow two softwares to connect that don’t have a direct connection. And then there’s the third option, which is basically a DIY integration. So yeah, you can build your own integrations between software systems. The drawback is that it’s expensive and time consuming to update. So the way this primarily works in the so and small firm environment is case management software is usually what acts as a hub for the integrations.

So everything bills off of the case management software. It is the hub and all the other softwares, the spokes in a wheel. See what I did there, boy, another flaming analogy over here. So at this point, what’s great is that the vast majority of law firms I think have case management software, which if you don’t know what that is, find out yesterday. But it’s effectively a relational database that allows you to organize your cases and information under those cases. I think it’s kind of like table stakes in the legal industry right now, but I’ll tell you, when I was practicing and coming up, I had to find everything in paper files and it fucking sucked. It was awful. One of the primary reasons why I left law practice. Now, I don’t regret that, but I mean, if I was a lawyer 10 years later and there was better software options in play, would I still be a lawyer?

Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t like to think about it. So you’re mostly threading this into your case management software. Sometimes your customer relationship management software, your intake software, sometimes your productivity software, sometimes your accounting software, as I’ve talked about before, those are really the big softwares for law firms. So that’s mostly where the integrations are threading into and you’re pushing out data in some cases as well. As I said, I mean it’s a two way street really. Information can come in, information can go out, you can trigger actions in one software. You can trigger actions in the other software, but this is all just words frankly. So as I said, I want to do something a little bit different today. I think the best way to give you an idea of what the breadth of your options are in terms of software integrations is to talk about actual real life combinations that could exist.

So let’s do that. Now, of course, there’s so many different software integrations and combos you could utilize. I have to stress that this is a non exhaustive list, but I just want to give you some sense of the types of software you can connect. And then like I said, I’m not going to hide the ball on you specific softwares that you could use to do this, but let’s dive into it. So one of the integration groupings I like the best is when you have a customer relationship management software that can feed into a case management software. This is where you can push your lead or your potential client into the case management system so you don’t have to manually add that data. That’s a pain. And if you do it right, you’ve also got a case type attached to a potential client in your CRM, and then you could push that over to your case management system, create a specific case type there, and then also potentially launch workflows off of that case type.

So I love this. This is probably my favorite integration option. So one of the examples I see regularly is Lawmatics, which is a CRM in the legal space. We just had Lawmatics, CEO, mass Fecal on the podcast. And then Clio, which is one of the more popular case management systems available, they just raised $900 million. Yes, 900 million. So they got some money to burn. So while Madison Clio can be put together with a direct integration, so you don’t have to go to a third party tool, now you can utilize a third party option for this as well. So let’s talk about my case, which is a large case management software company, not physically large. They have a large user base. I can connect my case with Pipedrive, A CRM. I like this non-legal specific. Let me give you a little inside baseball here. When I say I like a CRM, that means it has automations.

That’s what I want. I want to be able to push that rote work down to the software and not have the people that work for me manage it so I can connect my case and Pipedrive, but I can’t do it directly. However, my case and Pipedrive are both available or both connected to the API at Zapier, so I can use that as a third party tool to bridge the softwares together. Now I need that third piece, my case via Zapier connected to Pipedrive and vice versa. That’s another option here. Now, my case has its own intake tool that’s available in the software, but it doesn’t do automations in the way that a Lawmatics or a Pipedrive would do. Okay, let’s talk about accounting software. This is another common use case. I need to connect my accounting software to my case management software. Well, why do I need to do that?

Primarily because I want to be able to push out my time and billing records, my invoices to my accounting software. And in some cases people prefer to use the reporting tools on the accounting software rather than the reporting tools in the case management system. So you can connect QuickBooks to almost any case management software out there. And one that you can add it to is my case. So I could have my case and QuickBooks combo. That’s a direct combination. I don’t need a third party tool to make that happen. How about time tracking? You say, so we can utilize a case management software like Locus, which has been around for a little while. Locus is a case management tool that has a full scale CRM built into it, customizable product. I can add Toggle, which is a time tracking tool toggle with no E at the end to Locus if I use Zapier.

So again, we got that third party tool sitting in the middle. I’ve got Locus as my case management system. I want to leverage time tracking, potentially automated time tracking. I can do that with Toggle by combining it to that system with a third party tool sitting in the middle. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about Rocket Matter. Rocket Matter is another law practice management software. Still some debate over who was the first cloud-based law practice management software. Was that Clio? Was that Rocket Matter? No one knows for sure. So Rocket Matter has some direct integrations available as well, which I think are interesting. One is with Net Documents. So Net Documents is a document management system for the lawyers. Really popular one I managing Net documents are the two that most law firms use. I think NetDocuments is the best cloud-based version of that tool in my opinion.

And they have a direct integration with Rocket Matter. So if you are looking for something a little bit more robust with deep search capabilities, check in, checkout procedures, a little bit of ai, NetDocuments is a good tool and they connect directly with Rocket Matter. A lot of big firms are using document management softwares built for the legal industry, and most of them value that more highly than the case management software. Interestingly enough, then there is note taking software. So Evernote is probably the most popular online note taking software, probably the best as well. And you can throw a whole host of information sets in here. You can capture snippets from different types of files. And so if you use a note taking software and it happens to be Evernote, you can also connect that directly to Rocket Matter. Email is another thing that’s often connected with case management software.

And the use case here is I want to be able to have all the information available about my case in my case management software. So that’s going to include documents like I just talked about. That’s going to include notes, that’s going to include emails. The real value of case management software is if I can click on a file and I can see everything that’s happening in chronological order in that case, that’s amazing. And again, if you practiced law 20 years ago, you know that that’s crazy. Unbelievable. So Carrot is another case management software provider that’s a new name for Abacus Data Systems. So they have Abacus Law, they have Amicus Attorney, they have Zola Suite. I think they’re all under the Carrot brand now, and they connect with Gmail. So basically you can archive Gmail emails at your system. You can create billing entries off of your emails.

Great stuff, great stuff. Outlook, another email system that you may have heard of. Yeah, they connect with Cloud Lex, which is a case management software built for personal injury firms. Speaking of case management software is built for personal injury firms. Case Peer is another one. They were acquired by my case, which was then acquired by ape. So now we’ve got three fishes swallowing each other and they have an integration with Slack, which is another interesting use case via Zapier. So again, you need Zapier here. You can’t just do the direct integration. But the notion here is, hang on to that notion for a second. Slack is an internal communication platform that is not email for law firms. This is great for talking with your staff and fielding those questions. It’s great for threaded conversations and it’s great for managing subject matters of conversations, but with Slack, you may want to push some of that information into your case management software as well, because again, the idea is I want to look at the case and see every spec of information I can so I can quickly assess what’s going on every time I open my software.

So the case peer Slack integration via Zapier is another good one to take a look at. Oh, I did it Zapier. It’s Zapier. Sorry, don’t come at many people. Okay, next file. Vine. They are a pretty excellent case management software. Lots of features built out a lot of AI tools. Another company that took a bunch of funding a while back and they have an integration with Lex reception. How about that? Lex reception is one of a number of virtual answering services for law firms. There are a number of others. Again, not the only one, but they have a direct integration. So why would you want that? Well, if I’m having my virtual receptionist take notes on information related to a client, maybe I want to push that into my case management system. Maybe I want to add call times into my case management system. Maybe I want visual voicemail dropped into my case management system.

As a note, again, there’s a whole host of information sets out there for law firms to access. And if you can get those in one place, that’s great. Let’s now talk about fy. We’re on a run here. Cloudless case, peer file, vine fy used by a lot of personal injury law firms. So not exclusively Solidify is basically a case management software and A CRM that’s built into this built on top of, I should say, Salesforce, which is a pretty good product you may have heard of. Solidify has an integration with DocuSign, which is an e-signature tool. So we haven’t talked about that yet, but a lot of these case management products have direct integrations with e-sign tools as well as e-payments tools. Although I think in most cases what you want to do is not rely on the integration, but use the embedded or proprietary e-signature or e-payments tool for that software.

I got two more. Let’s talk about workflow management, project management, task management. One of my favorite topics, which is somewhat underutilized in law firms, lawyers aren’t necessarily the best at managing projects, but let’s not shit all over the lawyers here, most people really aren’t the best at managing projects. So Clio remember them, they get an integration with a tool called Legal Boards, which is effectively a task management software featuring some Kanban structures attached to Clio. So I can get Clio and legal boards put together via a direct integration. Now legal boards is relatively new software and it’s basically a version of other tools that are available to businesses generally. So it looks a lot like Trello if you’ve ever used that. Now, one of the more popular task management tools out there right now is notion they have some really great AI features that you have to pay for, but that’ll be a trend that we’re going to continue to see.

So Locus coming back to them, they have a Zapier integration. So I can connect Locus and notion via Zapier and what did I go through here? At least more than 10 software integrations. And that’s only the start of the story. You’ve got so many more options that you could take a look at. So the thrust here I think is the more data and information you can get into your case management system, the better. Because again, I want to be able to take a look at that case file and see everything that’s happened in chronological order. And when I say everything, I mean throw the kitchen sink in there, get me as much information as I can possibly look at until I want to throw up so I know I’m not missing anything. Speaking of not missing anything, you’re in the right place. We get even more great content coming at you in the Legal Toolkit and I now feel very connected to you all.

It’s the magic of the cloud, everybody actually, it’s not magic at all. It’s simply programming. Now, speaking of our programming and what’s next, we’re about to get to our interview with Jayne Reardon of Fisher Broils all about some issues with the current versions of the attorney ethics rules. But before we do that, we’ll only build up the suspense a little while longer. Let’s hear from our sponsors, everybody. Let’s get back to the meat in the middle of this legal podcasting sandwich. Today’s meet is ethically sourced. Of course, we’re talking about ethics and I guess the animals still die, but in a highly ethical fashion, fuck them chickens

Jayne Reardon:

And organic as well.

Jared Correia:

And organic. We’re doing organic too. Okay, great. Great. We got labeled. We’re all set to go. You just heard from our guest, let me introduce her. That is Jaden, who’s a partner, and the deputy general counsel at Fisher Broyles, LLP. I think this is their first time on the Legal Toolkit podcast. Is that right?

Jayne Reardon:

It is Jared. Thank you for having me. Pleased to be here.

Jared Correia:

Great. We’ll go relatively easy on you.

Jayne Reardon:

Okay, good.

Jared Correia:

So we’re going to talk about legal ethics today and some of the issues, shall we say, with some of the current ethics rules. But I don’t want to start there. I want to talk a little bit about your career so people can get to know you. So how did you end up at Fisher Broyles, which is a law firm?

Jayne Reardon:

Because

Jared Correia:

Before this you were working with the state of Illinois in their ethics department.

Jayne Reardon:

I started out as a trial lawyer and I loved trying cases, but that got to be a bit much in terms of demands on my time. And I got to feel like, wow, there’s a lot of wasted energy here. I’m fighting over motions in lemonade, what to keep out of evidence, this, that, and the other thing that combined with having three young children popped me over to work for the court system. I worked for the Illinois disciplinary system as counsel to the review board, and then when the court established a commission on professionalism, I became its executive director. And in that role I was basically promoting professionalism around the state of Illinois amongst lawyers and judges. And then about two years ago, well a little over a year ago, I joined Fisher Broyles. I’m doing legal ethics consulting and this firm really fits with my future focused practice because it is a hundred percent virtual. So all the lawyers practice from wherever they wish, and that creates a lot of efficiencies compared to your traditional bricks and mortar law firms, which are laden with debt and other heavy, heavy components, shall we say.

Jared Correia:

Alright, so let’s talk about what you were doing now. You alluded to this. So you’re advising on ethics rules effectively, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re doing that in the context of your law firm and talking to some other lawyers as well, is that right?

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah, currently I’m working with lawyers and law firms as well as I’m deputy general counsel, so I’m helping our lawyers as well

Jared Correia:

Stay

Jayne Reardon:

On the right side of the ethics rules

Jared Correia:

Within the law firm and working with lawyers. I’ve worked a little bit with lawyers on the ethics side of things. Do they listen to you or are they like

Jayne Reardon:

Whatever they try,

Jared Correia:

I’ll take my chances.

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, Jayne. They’re rolling the dice. Yeah, if I go this way and I’m like, well, you can take your

Jared Correia:

Chances. Yeah, I think that’s what it ultimately comes down to.

Jayne Reardon:

It does.

Jared Correia:

It’s your license, so go to town.

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah, and what’s interesting is the different jurisdictions bar council are more aggressive on some matters than others. So it is difficult to predict whether if you’re taking a chance you’re going to get detected or not if the action is close to the line. So it’s my job just to advise. Right.

Jared Correia:

And in some states, you’re right, it’s hard to get in trouble and easier to get in trouble depending on the state you’re in. Alright. Now you just mentioned you’re also working with legal tech companies. What’s that? You’re kind of advising them around the ethics rules and I guess how close they can come before they get busted. Is that fair to say?

Jayne Reardon:

Well, yes and no. With respect to some of those companies, it is how close you can get to being tagged as doing the unauthorized practice of law. Some of the other situations might involve being affiliated with somebody in another state which has different rules such as Arizona, which allows alternative business structures or Utah. So it kind of depends on the situation.

Jared Correia:

What’s it like working with legal tech companies? Are they like lawyers or do they try to push the envelope harder?

Jayne Reardon:

They’re great to work with. They are generally confused about the rules and I don’t blame ’em because me too, the rules are confus, full disclosure, confusing. Yeah. They say, well that doesn’t make any sense. I’m like, yeah, I know.

Jared Correia:

You’re like, tell me about

Jayne Reardon:

It. Some of these rules were written a long time ago, but they’re very grateful for the advice generally speaking, and it’s really interesting work. They’re interesting because they’re trying to do new things rather than just do the same things we’ve always done. Maybe with a slight twist on it.

Jared Correia:

Let’s talk about the UPL stuff, unauthorized crisis law, which is highlighted in rule 5.5 of the A model rules. You see some technology companies getting really aggressive about this, do not pay, has been trying to put a robot lawyer effectively into courtrooms. What’s the landscape of that look like right now and what do you think about the current rule?

Jayne Reardon:

So the landscape in my experience is getting more and more crowded. There are more and more technology companies which have the wherewithal to mine data and deliver unique services than ever before. It seems like every week there’s more and more companies coming out with unique products. The landscape is incredibly dynamic. The rules are very arcane. Not only do you have model rule 5.5, which of course really only applies to lawyers.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, technically

Jayne Reardon:

That’s right. Not technology companies, but you have a whole myriad of UPL laws on the books in various states, and those are being enforced or not by state’s attorneys. And some of the penalties are quite severe, like your first offense could be a misdemeanor second offense, could land you a $10,000 fine in a prison sentence for the unauthorized practice of law. So that, and understanding in this day and age when most tech companies aren’t stopping their services at the state line, which state has which penalties and allows what in terms of UPL is really challenging. It’s also quite chilling for the development of services to people, regular consumers who need it the most. And that’s why I’ve been watching the development of technology in the legal sector for decades, and it’s much easier and safer for technology companies to market to lawyers because then they’re not going to get tagged with UPL and the vast majority of technologies is being consumed by lawyers and law firms. That’s beginning to change now much more rapidly than it has say 10 years ago. And I think that’s where the promise to really open your regular people where I’m talking about families with consumer debt, family situations, small businesses, for them to be able to access legal services, these rules really ought to be reexamined, I think.

Jared Correia:

I would agree. But you bring up an interesting point in that the ethics rules are pointed at lawyers and the enforcement mechanisms that can be brought to bear on lawyers. But as far as these technology companies are concerned, potentially founded and run by non-lawyers, although I hate to use the term it’s appropriate here, and it sounds like that regulation comes more from state laws, is that what you’re saying?

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah. Now some state supreme courts, Illinois being one of them, has taken the position that they are in charge of the practice of law and they can enforce UPL against non-lawyers. Some states supreme courts only license and regulate lawyers. I would say technically speaking.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, I was going to say, do you buy that argument? The

Jayne Reardon:

Courts we’re supposed to be a self-regulated profession Jared. Right. That’s laid out in the rules of professional conduct in the preamble and as a self-regulated profession, we’re supposed to regulate ourselves, not the tech companies. So it may be seen by some as an overreach for the courts to start extending themselves to tech companies which are not being run by lawyers. Now typically many lawyers get involved and you would expect a tech company to have lawyers involved in the development or delivery of legal services because they need that expertise. And that’s where the hooks, if you will, of the courts come into play.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, that makes sense. I think it’s a lot easier if it’s a lawyer founder of a technology company. So where do lawyers get in trouble? Just regular lawyers. In terms of UPL, has that changed with the development of technology or no? What does that look like?

Jayne Reardon:

Well, there’s a couple of areas under you brought up rule 5.5 lawyers have to practice in a jurisdiction for which they’re licensed. So I’m licensed in Illinois, I’m not allowed to practice in other jurisdictions. So that’s called cross border practice. And there’s a lot of pushback on that because clients, if they want to hire Jared for their work, they don’t want him to stop at the state line. They want you to be able to help them with their projects wherever. And this is where I think our rules are quite antiquated. They were enacted at a time when we were very provincial compared to now, but now we have a global global practice. Does it make sense that we have the geographic restrictions? So that’s one area where lawyers may get into trouble is practicing beyond the geographic borders they have. But also there’s a lot of lawyers who are dipping into the tech space and merging what is their practice of law versus their business activities. And going into business with clients is,

Jared Correia:

I see that all the time,

Jayne Reardon:

An area. And so that can be an area where lawyers get into some trouble if they’re not very careful in setting up how they’re doing their business.

Jared Correia:

It sounds like you have some specific ideas of how 5.5 should change. What would you do if you could rewrite it or what would you remove?

Jayne Reardon:

I believe that there should not be a state by state licensure. I think if you’ve passed whatever the requirements are for one state, there should be an acceptance of that standard by other states. Some in the legal ethics field, call this the driver’s license model, right?

Jared Correia:

Yeah.

Jayne Reardon:

If you know how to drive your cart, you don’t forget how at the state border.

And what I think is so inherently inconsistent in our whole regulatory system right now is over time we have what’s called a uniform bar exam. The vast majority of the states, I think 40 some states accept this one standard now, which is going to be under reconsideration. But anyway, if there’s one standard for what it takes to be admitted to theBar, then it seems like there should be one standard for regulation and discipline throughout one’s career that it shouldn’t have the geographic limitations. One of the practical problems with changing that is, and I know this, I worked for our disciplinary council, every state supreme court has a whole system bureaucratic system for licensing and regulating lawyers.

A national system would throw that to the winds and it would have to be really reconceived. And I think it should be because we ought to be looking at what is the goal of our profession. The goal is to deliver legal services to people who need them and want them,

Jared Correia:

Right,

Jayne Reardon:

Call me crazy. But that should be the main touch point. Are those people getting quality, reliable legal services? I would say not when the vast majority of individuals in our country, I think the latest figures from the LSC is 92% of low income people do not have adequate legal services, if that is so that’s a real black eye on a profession that’s supposed to be servicing people. I mean, what other profession would say, well, if 92% don’t get 8% are served, we’re doing pretty well.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, we got a full 8% crutching it over here. I love it. Salty takes today, burn it all down. Alright, let’s talk about another ethics rule, 5.4 point. You kind of alluded to this one before, which is sort of like non-lawyer ownership, non-lawyer investment, non-legal services out of a law firm. And like you said, Arizona basically scrapped that rule and Utah has a sandbox where people can do this kind of mixed service called a BS alternative business structures. Can you talk to me about how this works now and how it’s being eroded? It is a little bit,

Jayne Reardon:

A little bit. I’m not sure that it’s going to take off, but rule 5.4, which is called ironically enough professional independence of the lawyer

Jared Correia:

Or lack thereof.

Jayne Reardon:

It’s kind of like killing a fly with an elephant’s foot. We are going to make sure that lawyers maintain independence by not allowing them to share legal fees with non-lawyers. Basically, that’s what the rule says. But what it does also is deprive lawyers from access to capital, access to talent, project managers, technologists, other people in allied professions that could join together and serve people more efficiently and effectively. And the reality is this rule as well as some of the other rules, 5.5, are predicated on preserving the guild and monopolistic motivations. If you look back in time, that’s the reason those rules were established is to make sure that lawyers kept the work within their profession and didn’t allow others to do it. The problem with that is it’s not serving would be customers and it’s not even serving especially solo and small firm practitioners

I mean they don’t have access to the resources to be able to scale, to be able to reach people to be able to deliver services. So yes, Arizona completely scrapped that rule and they have a different regulatory system in place, which is entity regulation that the Arizona Supreme Court has a way to regulate the entire firm, whether it’s called an alternative business structure, whoever’s there, they have to have a compliance officer. They have to make sure everybody abides by the rules and then they’re actually doing something that’s absolutely unheard of until the last few years in legal profession. They’re collecting data, finding out what, don’t be so shocked. But yeah, and the folks in Utah are collecting data. Are customers being harmed by this new business structure or are we actually serving them better? Should we find out or should we just continue to regulate the way we have for 150 years?

Jared Correia:

It’s so funny. Consumers are not being harmed. The concern is always that lawyers are being harmed, obviously.

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah,

Jared Correia:

It’s just wild to me.

Jayne Reardon:

But also I want to tell you one other thing.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Jayne Reardon:

Just in the last few days I found out that Minnesota is recommending a sandbox for a new regulatory reform, kind of like Utah has.

Jared Correia:

Oh hell yeah. I knew I liked Minnesota

Jayne Reardon:

And Minnesota. Nice. They say Washington State is considering entity regulation. They have a proposal that’s open for public comments. So I think if we have three or four states, I’d love to see some larger volume states in terms of number of lawyers involved to get on the bandwagon. Then maybe things will change. But Texas, which of course has a huge bar, has adopted another regulatory reform, which is allowing paraprofessionals

Deliver certain legal services. And that actually is affecting quite a few. I think there’s 12, 13 different jurisdictions now.

Jared Correia:

Do a lot

Jayne Reardon:

Of that have this? Yeah. Yeah. So that’s a positive thing, but it’s kind of a way to get around the rules or create new rules rather than a wholesale revision of rule 5.5 or 5.4.

Jared Correia:

I feel like a BS is going to happen. I think there’s just too many market pressures aligned with it. I think it’s inevitable, personally. I don’t know if you feel that way, but that’s how I feel about it.

Jayne Reardon:

I feel it’s coming. I’m just not sure about the timeframe.

Jared Correia:

Same.

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah. I thought it might take off, but now I feel like we’re kind of in a slowmo standard now.

Jared Correia:

What do you think is the move here? If you ran your own state, would you just do a away with the rule 5.4 or is there a way to reconstruct it?

Jayne Reardon:

I think, although there’s not a lot of data yet, I think the data coming in from Arizona shows we don’t need that rule at all.

Jared Correia:

I love it

Jayne Reardon:

and I don’t see a need for that rule, that rule and 5.5 are focused on how lawyers organize themselves as business people instead of it’s couched in how lawyers behave ethically vis-a-vis clients. There are so many other rules that govern the ethics of lawyers vis-a-vis clients. There’s one rule 2.1, which says, lawyers, you have to exercise your independent judgment and render your client’s candid advice. You don’t need 5.4. That’s exactly that rule again. And then you have a whole panoply of conflicts, rules. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. You’ll be in conflict with your clients. So I think those rules could go, which is not to say I think there should not be regulation. I do think we need regulation, and I wonder whether we need the same kind of regulation for all lawyers delivering all legal services, or should it vary depending on the sophistication of the client and the type of legal services that are delivered.

Jared Correia:

I love that. The more specific, the better.

Jayne Reardon:

Well, yeah. I mean, if you’re right now I have a jd, I could do criminal defense, wills, divorces, but I would not be competent to do all that. So it seems to me that if we’re really concerned about protecting the clients, we ought to figure out what needs protecting our big, big corporate clients. They get around the rules by just telling the lawyers what they’re going to do and what they’re going to pay for. Right,

Jared Correia:

Exactly. With small or solo attorneys wouldn’t necessarily have that experience. So that’s a good point.

Jayne Reardon:

Or one-off customers who get a will done or get a divorce but aren’t repeat customers with a volume of business. So I’m not sure one size fits all for the legal profession makes sense anymore because the market’s very fragmented.

Jared Correia:

And if you look at the ethics rules, they’re very general. And one of the complaints I get from attorneys is like, how can I even figure out what’s going on with my use case? Because I got to figure out how that applies to these highly generic ethics rules. So I like going down the road of specificity actually. Okay. So let me ask you this. If the rules are going to change, which I think you and I both agree, they should, or at least they be re-examined significantly, where does the pressure to do that come from? Do you think the A BA is going to put out new model rules based on all the changes that have been coming, including ai, which we haven’t talked about. Is it going to come from state bars and their rules? Is it going to be lawyers who want to bend the, it’s going to be technology companies who want to push the envelope? Where does that kind of start?

Jayne Reardon:

I think that is an excellent point. I believe because we are a self-regulated profession, those in power have no motivation to make the change. I would agree. It benefits them. So I don’t think the change is going to come from the organized bar. Those who are in the A BA have spent their whole lives striving to get there, and so they want to keep the status quo. Judges are lawyers with robes on, they’re part of the system. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Arizona and Utah both have appointed justices rather than elected justices. I do think the leadership, as long as we’re going to remain a self-regulated profession needs to be coming from state Supreme Court justices, but who can put pressure on them? And I think it’s those who elect them.

And unfortunately or fortunately, usually lawyers get out the vote for the justices. So you’ve got this kind of circular reasoning thing that we, oh, we do want to change the system, but this is the way it’s always been and what have you. I actually think the drivers have change are going to be economic. They’re going to come from the tech companies. We are already seeing that pushing against UPL is going to get stronger and stronger. And the more we become global in scope, the more unifying the approach will be to let’s get on the a BS bandwagon. Let’s get on a national, some sort of national standards. I’m wondering out loud whether some states might develop some sort of confederation, like let’s do a Midwest alliance of certain state Supreme Courts. I don’t

Jared Correia:

I don’t Know, Jayne. Now you’re stirring up trouble.

Jayne Reardon:

I know, I know. But I love it though. I don’t work for the court anymore, so it’s my job to kind of stir the pot.

Jared Correia:

I could see something like that happening. For sure.

Jayne Reardon:

I can see it happening. And a lot of states, including Illinois, have task forces looking at these issues. So why not join together? Why are we all issuing? Okay, for instance, you mentioned generative ai. I think we have 14 or 12 different state bar associations which have issued guidance to lawyers,

Jared Correia:

Guidelines, guidelines, or ethics opinions. Yeah.

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah, seriously, it’s the same set of tools. I don’t think they operate differently in California than New York. They’re all very interesting, but we’re reinventing the wheel in a lot of ways. The

Jared Correia:

Points they make in those ethics opinions are roughly the same. Let’s be honest. There’s not a lot of variety,

Jayne Reardon:

Nor should there be. If there’s ethical rules, they should be similar. So anyway, I do think there’s some bright lights of hope that things will open up and change.

Jared Correia:

Well, I think for everyone who really enjoyed this interview, there are going to be a specific subset of people who very much did not. But Jayne, thank you for doing this. This was a lot of fun. I had fun. At least

Jayne Reardon:

I had fun too. Thanks for having me. Jared,

Jared Correia:

Will you hang around for one final fun segment that we do?

Jayne Reardon:

I’d be happy to.

Jared Correia:

Alright everybody, we’ll take one final break so you can hear more about our sponsor companies and their latest service offerings. Then stay tuned as always, for the Rump Roast, it’s even more supple than the Roast Beast. Welcome back, everybody. That’s right. We’re at the rear end of the Legal Toolkit podcast. It’s the Rump Roast. It’s a grab bag of short form topics. All of my choosing. Why do I get to pick? Because I’m the host. Jayne, welcome back. How are you feeling?

Jayne Reardon:

I am a little bit nervous to be honest with you, Jared, but I’m here. Good. That’s

Jared Correia:

What we prefer. You’re an ethics expert, so I wanted to see how you would do with a random collection of ethics related trivia. Very random polls from the furthest reaches of the internet. I’m going to call this questionable ethics. Here’s how it goes. I’m going to read you a question and then I’m going to give you multiple choice. Let’s start with this. In what movie does Erich Gordon stumble on a question around business ethics causing him to ultimately lose an academic decathlon to an Adam Sandler character? Do you know this movie off the top of your head or would you like multiple

Jayne Reardon:

Choice? No, and I would like to file an objection because this is not ethics. This is trivia. And I told you I’m not good at trivia.

Jared Correia:

Good thing this isn’t a Courtroom Objection. Overruled. All right, I got multiple choice for you.

Jayne Reardon:

Okay, go.

Jared Correia:

You got a one in three chance. Is it Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison or Uncut Gems

Jayne Reardon:

Billy Madison?

Jared Correia:

Yeah, that’s right.

Jayne Reardon:

I knew that one.

Jared Correia:

Okay, see that? You said you weren’t good at this. Billy Madison really enjoy that good film. You’ve watched Billy Madison, you’ve seen Happy Gilmore.

Jayne Reardon:

I’ve seen Happy Gilmore enough to know that was not the plot line.

Jared Correia:

See, I told you I would go easy on you.

Jayne Reardon:

Yeah.

Jared Correia:

Okay,

Jayne Reardon:

Well one, I got one.

Jared Correia:

The next one’s a little bit harder. Okay, which world renowned philosopher reportedly threatened a visiting colleague with a Red Hot Poker at a meeting of the Aristotelian Society at the University of Cambridge in 1946? Violent discussion over philosophical ethics. Somebody pulls out a red hot poker and threatens a colleague with a, is it Ludwig Wienstein Soaring? Oh, I’m struggling here. Or Bertand Russell or Russell who got really worked up in 1946 about an ethics discussion.

Jayne Reardon:

There were so many people who got worked up in 1946 about an ethics discussion. I’m going to go with Russell.

Jared Correia:

That’s a good guess. But it was Icken Stein.

So Bertrand Russell was involved. He was Icken Stein’s mentor. So he was the only one who could talk him down from stabbing the sky with a red hot poker. But I feel like we had an ethics discussion before and no one got too heated. You didn’t pull a red hot poker on me. I know people can’t see that because we’re not recording the video, but everybody should know it didn’t happen. Very professional discussion. One for two. Let’s move on. This game show was found to be rigged during the 1950s when it was discovered that contestant Charles Van Dorin was being provided answers by the producers of the show. 1950s Game show rigged. Do you need multiple choice or do you know this one?

Jayne Reardon:

You better check me. Give me the multiple choice.

Jared Correia:

Okay, was the game show 21, the $25,000 pyramid or press your luck? 2120 $5,000 pyramid or press your luck?

Jayne Reardon:

Press your luck.

Jared Correia:

It was in fact 21.

Jayne Reardon:

That was the other one. I knew it wasn’t the 25.

Jared Correia:

I shouldn’t have given you multiple choice. Press your luck everyone. No whammies. No whammies.

Jayne Reardon:

Oh darn it.

Jared Correia:

Alright, you’re doing all right. One for three, which is pretty good in terms of a batting average.

Jayne Reardon:

Okay.

Jared Correia:

This philosopher has some eccentric beliefs about health and wellness that he personally adhered to. Among them, he bundled himself up tightly in blankets like a baby. When he slept, he basically swaddled himself. He also believed that breathing through one’s nose instead of the mouth was extremely important. So he would actually cover his mouth so he could breathe through his nose. And he tried to sleep as little as possible because he wanted to expand his lifespan by staying awake longer. So is it Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham or Emmanuel? kt, who do we have? Who do you like?

Jayne Reardon:

I like kt.

Jared Correia:

And you would be correct.

Jayne Reardon:

All

Jared Correia:

Two of four. He was a weird dude. Look him up. Everybody. No pressure, but you’re two of four. You can get above 50% if you get this last answer right. I have a lot of faith in you.

Jayne Reardon:

I’m feeling the pressure.

Jared Correia:

I feel like you can do it. All right, here we go. Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks squad during the Watergate era had the following nickname. Were they called the plumbers, the sweepers or the mechanics? Richard Nixon’s dirty trick squad in the seventies. Plumbers, sweepers, or mechanics. What did they call themselves?

Jayne Reardon:

I think I’m going to go with the sweepers.

Jared Correia:

Oh, that was a good guess.

Jayne Reardon:

Darn it.

Jared Correia:

So close still two out of five, 400 batting average.

Jayne Reardon:

Who was it? The mechanics or the plumbers?

Jared Correia:

The plumbers. The plumbers.

Jayne Reardon:

The plumbers. I should have known that one. I should have known that.

Jared Correia:

That’s all right. Not a bad job at all. So today you went in on the ethics rules and did pretty darn well at trivia. I’m impressed. Thanks for coming on.

Jayne Reardon:

Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Jared Correia:

I knew you’d be a great guest. If you want to find out more about Jayne Rearden and her work at Fisher Broyles, LLP, visit Fisher. Broyles, LLP. Now, for those of you listening in straight Oklahoma, we’ve got a Spotify playlist that will set you right. It’s all about making good choices. I don’t know, following the attorney ethics rules in your practice life while simultaneously advocating for change, something like that. Now, sadly, I’ve run out of time today to talk about my strategies for playing Wist. Maybe next time. This is Jared Correia reminding you that the sea of tranquility is really just a basaltic plane on Earth’s moon. In fact, it’s where the moon landing took place and yes, yes, everyone. The moon landing was real.

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