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| e-Advice It is a
constant challenge for any lawyer to keep up with the changing technologies
available today. Added to the concerns of clients, courts, billing
and even office politics, lawyers now must worry as well about metadata,
encryption, and electronic discovery.
The Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board (LPRB) and Office
of Lawyers Professional Responsibility (OLPR) have sometimes lagged
behind the private bar in implementing new technologies.
We have been catching up as rapidly as possible, however, and
now have a large amount of information available to lawyers and the
public through various electronic sources. The most recent addition to the OLPR-LPRB website (www.courts. Now, an attorney can submit a written inquiry electronically
by completing a form on the OLPR website as an alternative to calling. The sender simply fills in the necessary factual
information and the question on which advice is sought. Certain information is required, including an
attorney’s registration identification number, since the service remains
available only to currently licensed Minnesota attorneys. We have been assured that the connection will
be secure. An attorney who feels the need or desire for an opinion
in the evening or on a weekend now can submit the request immediately
while the question is fresh in mind.
Then it is waiting for the advisory attorney first thing the
next business day. The advisory attorney has the advantage of knowing
what the question is even before returning the call and may have partially
formulated a response or done some advance research on the issue if
necessary. Note that the response
to electronically submitted written advisory opinion requests will
be by phone, as with telephone inquiries, and not in writing or by
email. Additional factual information may still prove
necessary to formulate an advisory opinion, and will be handled as
before in the telephone conversation.
Overall, it is our hope that adding this option will make the
service more convenient and save time for those requesting an advisory
opinion. The same limitations on the advice offered apply to both
written and telephoned requests: opinions are provided only as to
the calling attorney’s prospective conduct (not as to third party
or past conduct) and can be based only upon the information provided.
If the facts are different than provided, the opinion might
not be valid. A record of the
request and information concerning the question and answer is maintained
in the OLPR’s advisory opinion database and is considered confidential. A further goal in our development of the e-advice service
will be to allow individuals to “build their own advisory opinion”
on the OLPR website through a series of links that will connect the
user to all applicable articles, rules and an FAQ section dealing
with a particular topic. The process of upgrading the website to allow
such advisory opinion building will take some time yet, but once available,
this technology will allow lawyers and the public to readily access
general professional responsibility information. Ongoing Process The new e-advisory opinion form is part of an ongoing
process by the Lawyers Board and the Director’s Office to make our
website as useful as possible to lawyers and the public.
Considerable information already is available. Obviously, the Rules of Professional Conduct,
Rules on Lawyers Professional Responsibility, and Lawyers Board Opinions
are available. All of the articles
written by the director and the director’s staff for publications
such as Bench & Bar of Minnesota and Minnesota Lawyer, plus some related articles
written by Board members or others, are available on the website. An index of those articles is also available.
Within the next year we plan to revise this index in an effort
to make it even more useful. The index and website are fully searchable.
Information on professional firms filing, required trust account
records, financial institutions approved for IOLTA accounts, and cross-border
practice rules are among the other information available on the site. Earlier this year, another new feature was added to the
OLPR website: a searchable
attorney database which provides access to an attorney’s complete
public disciplinary history with links to copies of the public discipline
orders. Also included are the lawyer’s full name, license
number, year of admission, city where the attorney is located, and
whether the attorney is currently authorized to practice Finally, another minor technological initiative recently
undertaken by the Director’s Office is to issue press releases electronically.
Lawyers Board policy has long been to issue a press release
upon the filing of all contested public disciplinary petitions seeking
disbarment or suspension, unless such petition is accompanied by a
stipulation simultaneously authorizing an agreed upon discipline.
The Director’s Office again issues a press release upon the
issuance by the Supreme Court of all public discipline decisions.
Previously, releases were issued by mail to major local media
and to local newspapers associated with a respondent’s practice location. Upon inquiry, it was determined that most media
now prefer to receive press releases by email, which makes them considerably
more timely and the information more newsworthy. Whether this will immediately result in greater
coverage of disciplinary activities is not assured, but protection
of and notice to the public demands we attempt it. What’s Next? Some electronic advances are being considered, but may
be a ways off before becoming reality.
For example, a recent study by HALT, a self-proclaimed legal
reform organization, praised and criticized the Minnesota lawyer disciplinary
system. Minnesota appropriately received high marks
for its extensive use of nonlawyers throughout the disciplinary system. Some of the study’s information, however, was
faulty: it praised Minnesota
inaccurately for using a “preponderance of the evidence” standard,
when in fact the standard for imposing lawyer discipline has always
been by “clear and convincing” evidence.
Another issue upon which the study incorrectly praised our
system was the supposed ability of complainants to file complaints
online. In fact, complaints
at present must be received in writing, with only some limited exceptions
made to accommodate disabled individuals. Since it has never been a requirement that complaints
be signed and notarized, electronically filed complaints may indeed
be feasible. How soon such
a change will be considered would certainly depend upon the instruction
of the Lawyers Board as a whole, or upon whether an anticipated review
commission recommends such a change. It was only ten years ago that OLPR staff attorneys worked
with no desktop computers, no email, limited computerized research,
and no website. We have made rapid technological progress.
The Director’s Office will continue to look for ways to improve
our ability to better serve the public and the bar through more modern
technology. MARTIN COLE is director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility. An alumnus of the University of Minnesota and of the University of Minnesota Law School, he has served the lawyer disciplinary system for 21 years. |
