Legal

Nova Law Review
Volume 29, Issue 1 2004 Article 4
Ethical Obligations: Performing Adequate

Legal Research and Legal Writing
Carol M. Bast∗ Susan W. Harrell†
∗
†
Copyright 2004
c by the authors. Nova Law Review is produced by The Berkeley Electronic
Press (bepress). http://nsuworks.nova.edu/nlr
Bast and Harrell: Ethical Obligations: Performing Adequate Legal Research and Legal
ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS: PERFORMING

ADEQUATE LEGAL RESEARCH AND LEGAL
WRITING
CAROL M. BAST
SUSAN W. HARRELL
I. INTRODUCTION ...............................................
49
II. ADEQUATE LEGAL RESEARCH .................................................... 50
III. COMPLIANCE WITH COURT RULES ............................................. 52
IV . ADEQUATE W RITING ..................................................................... 55
V. D ILIGENCE ................................................................................... 57
VI. BASIS IN LAW AND FACT .............................................................. 58
VII. TRUE STATEMENT ......................................................................... 60
VIII. DISCLOSURE OF ADVERSE AUTHORITY ........................................ 62
IX. STATEMENT CONCERNING OTHERS .............................................. 64
X. STATEMENT REGARDING JUDGE .................................................. 65
X I. H ON ESTY ....................................................................................... 68
XII. ANALYSIS OF A CASE WITH A COMBINATION OF ETHICAL ERRORS 69
XIII. CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 72
I. INTRODUCTION
Legal research and legal writing are fundamental skills necessary to the
practice of law. Thus, it should come as no surprise that an attorney's failure
to perform adequate legal research and write well can violate the attorney's
professional responsibility. A demonstrated lack of competent legal research
and legal writing performance is injurious to an attorney's reputation. Fail-
ure to adequately research or write well, or both, is a violation of ethics rules
and can result in a reprimand, suspension, or disbarment from the practice of
law; a client may decide that it is the basis of a legal malpractice lawsuit.
Many states have adopted the American Bar Association (ABA) Model
Rules of ProfessionalConduct and the ethics rules of other states may have
provisions similar to those of the Model Rules. A number of the Model
* Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies of the
University of Central Florida, Orlando; J.D., magna cum laude, New York Law School, 1982;
M.A., University of Wisconsin, 1976; B.A., Kalamazoo College, 1974.
** Associate Professor in the Division of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies of the
University of West Florida, Pensacola; J.D. Samford University, Cumberland School of Law,
1984; B.F.A., University of Georgia, 1978.
Published by NSUWorks, 2004 1

Nova Law Review, Vol. 29, Iss. 1 [2004], Art. 4
NOVA LA W REVIEW [Vol. 29:1:49
Rules are related to the duty of the attorney to perform adequate legal re-
search and write well. Far from being a technicality, problems with the at-
torney's legal research and legal writing can violate the Model Rules.
Those professors who teach legal research and legal writing bemoan the
students who do not apply themselves in class, perhaps believing that class
material will not be relevant to them in the future. Exposing students to
cases in which sloppy legal research or inattention to grammar or court rules
resulted in severe sanctions can serve as a cautionary tale, impressing upon
them the importance of developing sound legal research and legal writing
skills.
This article will provide a discussion of specific parts of the ABA Model
Rules of Professional Conduct that relate to the attorney's legal research and
writing obligations. Each section will introduce the reader to a Model Rule,
or a portion of a Model Rule, and supply case law examples of the sanctions
meted out to attorneys found to be in violation of the rules. The importance
of the attorney's duty to perform adequate legal research may possibly be
reflected in the fact that it is the first rule in the Model Rules.
II. ADEQUATE LEGAL RESEARCH
Rule 1.1 of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct requires the attor-

ney to provide the client with competent representation.' The rule provides:
"A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent
representation requires the legal knowledge, skill,2 thoroughness and prepara-
tion reasonably necessary for the representation.,
Performing any needed legal research is one of the elements to provid-
ing competent representation for the client. An attorney must perform legal
research to have the legal knowledge necessary to competently represent a
client. 3 However, many attorneys apparently fail to perform even basic legal
1. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 1.1 (2004).

2. Id. In Howardv. Oakland Tribune, 245 Cal. Rptr. 449, 451 n.6 (Cal. Ct. App. 1988),
the annoyance of the court was palpable when it chastised the attorney for sloppy citations.
"We were not aided in our resolution of this appeal by the appellants' opening brief, which
was riddled with inaccurate and incomplete citations and which frequently referred to cases
without reference to the pages on which the cited holdings appear." Id.
3. One of the fundamental tasks in legal research is to ascertain that authority found is
still good law by using a citator. Omitting this step can cause grave problems. In Fletcher v.
State, 858 F. Supp. 169, 172 (M.D. Fla. 1994), the court noted that the plaintiffs cited one case
that had been overruled and another that was reversed.
http://nsuworks.nova.edu/nlr/vol29/iss1/4 2
2004] ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS
research. Weinstein, the attorney in the following case, provided legal ad-
vice without performing any legal research.
In Baldayaque v. United States,5 Baldayaque, an illegal immigrant from
the Dominican Republic, pled guilty to a heroin charge and was sentenced to
168 months in prison.6 At sentencing, the court admitted that the sentence
was harsh but required by the sentencing guidelines, and the court would not
object if the government chose to deport Baldayaque rather than have him
remain in prison. 7 At Baldayaque's request, his wife, Christina Rivera, hired
Weinstein to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus. 8 Without completing
any legal research, Weinstein informed Rivera that the time had passed for
filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus; however, Baldayaque had nearly
fourteen months within which to do so. 9 Weinstein did file a motion request-
ing that Baldayaque's sentence be modified to permit the government to de-
port him; however, that motion failed to cite any legal authority supporting
it.10 The district court denied the motion stating that the court did not have
jurisdiction and the motion was untimely." Weinstein informed Baldayaque 2
in writing of the court decision, but the letter was returned to Weinstein.1
Eighteen months later, Baldayaque filed a motion on a pro se basis to
have his sentence modified. 13 The court denied the motion but gave Bal-
dayaque information regarding the filing of a habeas petition.' 4 With that
information, Baldayaque, again on a pro se basis, filed a petition for writ of
habeas corpus. 15
4. Baldayaque v. United States, 338 F.3d 145 (2d Cir. 2003). In Smith v. Lewis, 530
P.2d 589 (Cal. 1975), the court explained that an attorney is expected "to possess knowledge
of those plain and elementary principles of law which are commonly known by well informed
attorneys, and to discover those additional rules of law which, although not commonly known,
may readily be found by standard research techniques." Id. at 595. The court gave an exam-
ple of a minimum standard: "In evaluating the competence of an attorney's services, we may
justifiably consider his failure to consult familiar encyclopedias of the law." Id. at 593 n.5
(citing People v. Ibarra, 386 P.2d 487, 491 (Cal. 1963)). In Pineda v. Craven, 424 F.2d 369,
372 (9th Cir. 1970), the Ninth Circuit brutally clarified that although an attorney may make a
strategic or tactical decision on behalf of a client, "[t]here is nothing strategic or tactical about
ignorance."
5. 338 F.3d 145 (2d Cir. 2003).
6. Id. at 147.
7. Id. at 148.
8. Id.
9. Id. at 148-49.
10. Baldayaque, 338 F.3d at 149.
11. Id.
12. Id.
13. Id.
14. Id.
15. Baldayaque, 338 F.3d at 149.

The court found that Weinstein had violated the state ethics rule, which
is identical in wording to rule 1.1 of the Model Rules of Professional Con-
duct.'6 The court held that "an attorney's conduct, if it is sufficiently egre-
gious, may constitute . . . 'extraordinary circumstances."",17 Extraordinary
circumstances combined with reasonable diligence on Baldayaque's part
could allow tolling of the one year period.18 The Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit remanded the case to the district court to determine whether
Baldayaque had been reasonably diligent.19
The failure to perform adequate research is clearly unprofessional and
unacceptable. However, the failure to comply with a court rule that specifies
a format becomes unbelievable. Courts burdened under an overwhelming
number of cases do not take kindly to attorneys who fail to comply with the
format required by court rules.
III. COMPLIANCE WITH COURT RULES
If an attorney fulfills the obligation to perform adequate research and in

doing so locates specific formats that the court rules require, logic would
suggest that the format should be followed. Incompetence may be demon-
strated by the attorney's noncompliance with court rules.2 ° In the following
three cases, failure to comply with court rules resulted in severe sanctions.
16. Id.at 152.

17. Id. at 152.
18. Id. at 153.
19. Id.
20. In Henning v. Kaye, 415 S.E.2d 794, 794 (S.C. 1992), the Supreme Court of South
Carolina barely refrained from dismissing an appeal because the appellant's brief failed to
conform to the court rule regulating brief format.
[T]he components of the brief are incorrectly organized and labeled, the issues are not dis-
tinctively headed, the table of authorities is not alphabetized or referenced to the body of the
brief, the statement of the case contains contested matter and omits required information,
and the arguments contain no citations to the record or to the cases listed in the table of au-
thorities.
Id.The court reminded the attorney of the importance of court rules: "[Tlhe South Carolina
Appellate Court Rules are not mere technicalities but provide the parties and this Court with
an orderly mechanism through which to guide appeals .. " Id.In TSC Express Co. v. G.H.
Bass & Co. (In re Allen), 176 B.R. 91, 95 n.2 (D. Me. 1994), the court denied both parties'
motions for summary judgment because they failed to comply with the local rule requiring a
motion for summary judgment to be supported with a memorandum containing a factual
statement with references to the record. One of the parties failed to make references to the
record and the other failed to provide a factual statement. Id. In addition, both parties'
memoranda were too long. Id."The briefs of both sides are prolix, verbose, and full of inac-
curacies, misstatements and contradictions. The lawyering on behalf of both parties falls
woefully short of the standards to which attorneys practicing before this court have been tradi-
tionally held ..... Id. Many courts take page limit restrictions seriously. In the following
In In re O'Brien,2 1 the court dismissed the appeal because the appellant

"has seen fit to ignore the FederalRules of Appellate Procedure and Ninth
Circuit rules, and essentially tossed this bankruptcy case in our laps, leaving
it to us to figure out the relevant facts and law. We decline to do so."' 22 The
court commented that "[a]n enormous amount of time is wasted when attor-
neys fail to provide proper briefs and excerpts of record that should have
supplied the court with the materials relevant to the appeal. 23
cases, the courts sanctioned attorneys for failure to comply with page limit restrictions. In
InsulatedPanelCo. v. Industrial Commission, 743 N.E.2d 1038, 1040 (Ill. App. Ct. 2001), the
appellate court approved the trial court's decision of considering only the first ten pages of a
fifty-page brief after the court had announced that it was limiting briefs to ten pages. Simi-
larly, in Van Winkle v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., 683 N.E.2d 985, 989 (Ill. App. Ct.
1997), Owens-Coming placed some of its argument in single-spaced footnotes to comply with
the page limit on briefs. The court announced that in the future it would ignore material in
footnotes when the footnotes are used to avoid the page limit rule. Id at 990. In State v.
Hudson, 473 S.E.2d 415, 417 (N.C. App. 1996), rev'don other ground, 483 S.E.2d 436 (N.C.
1997), the court ordered Hudson's attorney to pay $500 because the brief was forty-two pages,
thus above the thirty-five page limit under the appellate rules. In Varda, Inc. v. Insurance Co.
of North America, 45 F.3d 634, 640 (2d Cir. 1995), the successful party was not awarded costs
because of its violation of the court rule limiting briefs to fifty pages. "[A]pproximately 75%
of Varda's statement of facts and argument appear in footnotes. If Varda had presented its
facts and argument in ...the text, its briefs would have been roughly seventy pages." Id.In
TK-7 Corp. v. Estate of Barbouti, 966 F.2d 578, 579 (10th Cir. 1992), the court struck the
defendants' brief because it failed to conform to the fifty-page limit. The writer had moved
text into footnotes and reduced the footnote font below the pica ten pitch spacing minimum.
Otherwise the brief would have been almost twice the fifty-page limit. Id.In White Budd Van
Ness Partnershipv. Major-GladysDrive Joint Venture, 811 S.W.2d 541, 541 (Tex. 1991), the
Supreme Court of Texas dismissed an Application for Writ of Error because, although the
Application complied with the fifty-page limit, the writer had reduced the type size and nar-
rowed the margins to achieve the limit. In Buffalo v. Robbins, 811 S.W.2d 541, 541-52 (Tex.
1991), the Supreme Court of Texas struck the Application for Writ of Error because it failed
to comply with the court rule governing format of the Application. Some page limit restric-
tions apply even in a death penalty case. In Prattv. Armenakis, 56 P.3d 920, 921 (Or. 2002),
the attorney seeking post-conviction relief for the client asked to file a 260-page brief. The
judge permitted a brief of one hundred pages instead of the usual fifty. Id.The attorney re-
peated the request to file a 260-page brief. Id.The judge permitted a brief of 150 pages. Id.
The Supreme Court of Oregon affirmed the judge's decision to allow a brief with a maximum
of 150 pages. Id.at 923. One Illinois court takes pinpoint references seriously. In Ikari v.
Mason Properties,731 N.E.2d 975, 978 (Ill. App. Ct. 2000), the court admonished the parties
for failing to include pinpoint references. "All of the cases cited by defendant, and most of the
cases cited by plaintiffs, lack reference to the official reports' page numbers upon which the
pertinent matters appear." Id.
21. 312 F.3d 1135(9th Cir. 2002).
22. Id.at 1137.
23. Id. In Morters v. Barr, No. 01-2011, 2003 WL 115359, at *4 (Wis. App. Jan. 14,
2003), the court ordered the appellants to pay the respondents' costs and attorney fees because
the appellants's brief failed to comply with the applicable court rule. The court stated: "We

NOVA LAWREVIEW [Vol. 29:1:49
In Catellier v. Depco, Inc.,24 Ziobron, Catellier's attorney, was ordered

to pay Depco's attorney fees for the appeal because of Ziobron's failure to
comply with the appellate rules governing appellate briefs.25 Ziobron's brief
exceeded the maximum number of pages allowable and used smaller font
than required in the text and the footnotes.2 6 The statement of the case and
the statement of the facts incorrectly included an argument. 27 Pinpoint cita-
tions were omitted.2 8 The argument section was so poorly written that it was
difficult to understand and contained accusations against the trial court.29
recognize that it is unreasonable to expect every attorney in Wisconsin to construct arguments

as if they were authored by Learned Hand, but a line must be drawn separating adequate from
inadequate briefs in order to give some life to the requirements of Wis. Stat. Rule 809.19." Id.
at *3-4, In evaluating the appellants' brief the court found that "[t]he appellants' brief falls
short of the mark-the brief was apparently thrown together by making a number of general
claims of error and then quoting two pages of law that may or may not be relevant to the case
at hand." Id.
24. 696 N.E.2d 75 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998).
25. Id. at 80.
26. Id. at 79.
27. Id.
28. Id.
29. Catellier, 696 N.E.2d at 79. The statements about the judge could have violated
another ethics rule prohibiting an attorney from impugning the reputation of the judge. An-
other ploy attempted by some attorneys to avoid the maximum page limit is to incorporate
another document by reference. In Guerrero v. Tarrant County Mortician Services Co., 977
S.W.2d 829, 832-33 (Tex. Ct. App. 1998), the court refused to consider the appellants' argu-
ments regarding official immunity contained in their responses to the defendants' motion for
summary judgment. In Glover v. Columbia Fort Bend Hospital, No. 06-01-00101-CV, 2002
WL 1430783, at *5 (Tex. Ct. App. July 3, 2002), Glover's pro se brief was ninety pages long,
exceeding the maximum length by more than forty pages. When the court struck the brief and
ordered him to submit a brief in compliance with the court rule, Glover requested leave to
exceed the page limit, which the court denied. Id. Glover's new brief complied with the page
limit but incorporated a number of arguments by reference from his original brief. Id. The
court refused to consider argument contained in the original brief. Id. at *5-6. In Westing-
house Electric Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 809 F.2d 419, 424-25 (7th Cir. 1987), the court sanctioned
an attorney $1000, to be paid by the attorney, for failing to conform the brief format to rule
28(g), which limits the opening brief to fifty pages. The court noted that:
Fed. R. App. P. 32(a) requires typed briefs to be double-spaced and to observe specified margins.
Briefs also must have type II points or larger, ruling out elite type. Westinghouse disregarded all
of these rules. It filed a brief with approximately 1 1/2 spacing, with type smaller than 11 points,
and with margins smaller than those allowed. The effect was to stuff a 70-page brief into 50
pages. One has the sense that the lawyers wrote what they wanted and told the word processing
department to jigger the formatting controls until the brief had been reduced to 50 pages. Our
clerk's office did not catch the maneuver. The judges did, and when we required Westinghouse to
file a brief complying with the rules counsel responded by moving gobs of text into single-
spaced footnotes, thereby leaving essentially the same number of words in the brief.
Id. at 425 n. 1. In Laitram Corp. v. Cambridge Wire Cloth Co., 919 F.2d 1579, 1584 (Fed. Cir.
1990), the attorneys were each ordered to pay $1000 in sanctions due to their failure to con-
form the briefs to applicable court rules.
In Ernst Haas Studio, Inc. v. Palm Press, Inc.,30 the court affirmed the
dismissal of the appellant's complaint and sanctioned the attorney, ordering
the attorney personally liable for the appellee's reasonable attorney's fees
where the attorney failed to conform the appellate brief to the court rule gov-
erning briefs. 3 1 "Appellant's Brief is at best an invitation to the court to scour
the record, research any legal theory that comes to mind, and serve generally
32
as an advocate for appellant. We decline the invitation."
Although most attorneys do not have difficulty following formats re-
quired by court rules, some attorneys graduate from law school and pass the
bar, yet their writing skills fall below what courts tolerate. The following
section discusses two cases in which attorneys were sanctioned because of
their poor writing.
IV. ADEQUATE WRITING
The competence required under rule 1.1 includes adequate writing

skills.33 In Kentucky Bar Ass 'n v. Brown,34 attorney Brown filed an appellate
Counsel for neither side appears willing, even when cautioned, to understand and follow the rules
governing the appellate process. Showing no mercy on this busy court, they first filed briefs so
replete with cross-charges of misstatements and so lacking in record references as to frustrate the
desire of this court to trust its officers in this case. The court was thus compelled to decline the
burden of checking each statement and to reject those briefs ...Continuing a kind of "Alice in
Patentland" approach to the judicial process, the parties' conduct then grew "curiouser and curi-
ouser," for their new briefs include: statements of fact with no record reference; statements of
fact for which there is no record; reliance on attorney argument and counsel's unsworn fact
statements as 'evidence'; citation of materials and raising of questions as though they were be-
fore the district court when the present record indicates they were not; assertions of and reliance
on facts that occurred after entry of the judgment appealed from; irreconcilably conflicting posi-
tions of the same party; citation of inapplicable authorities; page upon page of argument about a
product that was admittedly not before the district court and is not before this court; arguments
directed to products never charged as infringements; disregard of the concerns expressed by this
court at oral argument; and a refusal to come to grips with the questions propounded by this
court. Far from aiding this court to decide, by presenting legal arguments on concrete fact pat-
terns, counsel have in this case wasted this court's resources by playing in the rarified atmosphere
of a debating society. In sum, the parties' briefs and arguments on this appeal serve not to seek
but to obfuscate the truth.
Id.at 1583-84 (citations omitted).
30. 164 F.3d 110 (2d Cir. 1999).
31. Id.at 113.
32. Id.at 112. In similar fashion, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed
the appeal in Sioson v. Knights of Columbus, 303 F.3d 458, 459 (2d Cir. 2002) for the appel-
lant's attorney to submit "an adequate brief."
33. MODEL R. PROF'L CONDUCT R. 1.1. In State v. Bridget, No. 70053, 1997 WL 25518,
at *3 n.3 (Ohio App. Dist. 1997), the court stated:
[W]e note that appellant counsel's brief is replete with over fifty examples of mistakes in punc-
tuation, citation and spelling. We note that appellant's counsel is a former judicial clerk with
service to this court and is urged to do credit to his former position by applying greater atten-
tion to detail in his brief writing and proofreading efforts before the Bench.

NOVA LA WREVIEW [Vol. 29:1:49
brief that was "'a little more than fifteen unclear and ungrammatical sen-
tences, slapped together as two pages of unedited text with an unintelligible
message.' ' 35 The Supreme Court of Kentucky noted that Brown's brief
"would compare unfavorably with the majority of the handwritten pro se
pleadings prepared by laypersons which this Court reviews on a daily ba-
sis." ' 36 The Supreme Court of Kentucky suspended Brown from the practice
of law for sixty days for violating
37 the state ethics rule that was identical in
wording to Model Rule 1.1.
In In re Hogan,38 attorney Hogan "'lack[ed] the fundamental skill of
drafting pleadings and briefs,"' with some of the passages understandable
and other passages "incomprehensible. 39 The Supreme Court of Illinois
placed Hogan on inactive status while undergoing rehabilitation. ° In 1998,
Hogan filed a Petition for Restoration to Active Status with the Hearing
Board of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.4'
The Hearing Board recommended that Hogan's petition be denied because
Hogan had not undergone any treatment since 1987 and the 42
petition Hogan
submitted showed that his writing was "incomprehensible.,,
In In re Hawkins,43 Hawkins filed documents in bankruptcy court that
were "rendered unintelligible by numerous spelling, grammatical, and typo-
graphical errors ... sufficiently serious that they amounted to incompetent
representation." 44 The Supreme Court of Minnesota found that Hawkins had
violated the state ethics rule version of rule 1.1 and publicly reprimanded
Id.In Arena Land& Investment Co. v. Petty, No. 94-4196, 1995 WL 645678, at *1(10th
Cir. Nov. 3, 1995), Arena's third amended complaint was dismissed because it failed to
give defendants notice of the claims against them. The complaint contained "confusing
grammatical and structural problems that contained legal conclusions unsupported by
relevant facts." Id. at *2. Arena also failed to delete 'scandalous, impertinent and re-
dundant matter.. as requested by the trial court. Id.The court added that "[v]ague and
conclusory assertions, regardless of how long or how short, are inadequate to state such
causes of action." Id.
34. 14 S.W.3d 916 (Ky. 2000).
35. Id. at 918-19.
36. Id.at 919.
37. Id.at 918-919.
38. No. 98-RS-2552, 1999 WL 802922, at *1 (Ill. Att'y Registration & Disciplinary
Comm'n Feb. 15, 1998).
39. Id. at *1.
40. Id.at *3.
41. Id.at *4.
42. Id.at *4-6.
43. 502 N.W.2d 770 (Minn. 1993).
44. Id.at 770-71.
him.45 The court ordered Hawkins to attend ten hours of legal writing and
other continuing legal education programs. g
In Henderson v. State,47 Henderson challenged the adequacy of his in-
dictment because of its poor grammar. 48 The court stated: "Though gram-
matically unintelligible, we find that the indictment is legally sufficient and
affirm, knowing full well that our decision will receive of literate persons
everywhere opprobrium as intense and widespread as it will be deserved. '4 9
The substantive and procedural content of legal writing must be com-
municated clearly, but it must also meet the requirement of timeliness. The
attorney must perform legal research and legal writing tasks with reasonable
promptness.
V. DILIGENCE
An attorney must comply with deadlines or be subject to sanctions.5 °

Rule 1.3 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires the attorney to
act in a timely fashion: "A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and
promptness in representing a client." 51 In the following case, the attorney
failed to perform adequate legal research, which resulted in the attorney fil-
ing the lawsuit after the two-year statute of limitations had passed.
In Idaho State Bar v. Tway,5" a client hired Tway in August of 1989 to
pursue a police brutality claim against the Boise Police Department.53 Tway
consulted the annotations to the Idaho Code, finding a 1981 case stating that
a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is subject to a three-year statute
of limitations. 54 Tway failed to Shepardize the case to find that in a 1986
case the Supreme Court of Idaho held that a civil rights action was subject to
a two-year statute of limitations.5 5 The two-year statute of limitations had
45. Id. at 771.

46. Id. at 772.
47. 445 So. 2d 1364 (Miss. 1984).
48. Id. at 1366.
49. Id. at 1365.
50. In Julien v. Zeringue, 864 F.2d 1572 (Fed. Cir. 1989), the appeal was dismissed for
failure to prosecute. Id. at 1573. Julien's attorney, C. Emmet Pugh, was ordered to personally
pay $12,087 and $1350 for a portion of the other parties' costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees.
Id. at 1576. In the case, Pugh filed fourteen motions for extension of time and met one dead-
line. Id. at 1573.
51. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 1.3.
52. 919 P.2d 323 (Idaho 1996).
53. Id. at 324.
54. Id. at 325, 327.
55. Id. at 325.

run by the time Tway filed the case in March of 1992.6 Tway also commit-
ted some irregularities with the client's trust account and with regard to
communicating with the client; at the time, Tway was suspended from prac-
tice because of other misconduct.57 The Supreme Court of Idaho suspended
Tway from practicing law for five years.58
An attorney's failure to perform adequate and timely research not only
harms clients, but also harms the judicial system. With their ever-increasing
case loads, courts seem to deal more harshly with attorneys who file frivo-
lous lawsuits. Cases in which attorneys were disciplined for failing to anchor
the lawsuit to a basis in law and fact are discussed in the following section.
VI. BASIS IN LAW AND FACT
Rule 3.1 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires that the
attorney provide a legal and factual foundation for a lawsuit. 59 The rule pro-
vides in relevant part: "A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or
assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for
doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an
extension, modification or reversal of existing law." 60 Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 1 (b)(2) contains language similar in substance to the first sen-
tence of rule 3.1 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.61 Rule 11 al-
lows the federal court to impose severe sanctions.62
Courts have resorted to a variety of remedies when faced with attorneys
who file complaints that are groundless, or lack a factual basis. Attorneys
have been ordered to pay opposing counsel's reasonable attorney's fees and
attend continuing legal education classes on professionalism, the rules of
56. Id.at 324-25.

57. Tway, 919 P.2d. at 325-26.
58. Id. at 328.
60. Id. In FederatedMutual Insurance Co. v. Anderson, 920 P.2d 97 (Mont. 1996), the
court sanctioned John Deere by ordering it to pay another party's reasonable costs and attor-
ney's fees on appeal. Id. at 104. The sanctions were "on the basis of the inconsistent and
conflicting positions John Deere has taken ...its baseless claims on appeal, and its inaccurate
citations in its appellate brief." Id. In United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (lst Cir.
1990), the court refused to consider Zannino's arguments that were referenced briefly, yet not
developed. "[W]e see no reason to abandon the settled appellate rule that issues adverted to in
a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, are deemed
waived." Id. The four co-defendants, who had been tried separately, had raised various ar-
guments. Id.Zannino told the appellate court that he adopted their arguments as they applied
to him. Id.The court refused to consider their arguments. Id.
61. Compare FED. R. Civ. P. 11 with MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 3.1.
62. FED. R. CIV. P. 11.
professional conduct, and substantive areas of law specific to the cases that
were filed.
In Balthazar v. Atlantic City Medical Center,63 attorney Branella filed a
medical malpractice action in state court claiming that Balthazar's ureter was
severed during a hysterectomy. 64 The state appellate court affirmed the dis-
missal of the case for the attorney's failure to file an affidavit of merit within
the required 120-day period.6 5 Branella subsequently filed a federal lawsuit
based on the same facts of the state lawsuit in Balthazar.66 The judge al-
lowed Branella to amend his complaint but warned him that the judge might
find Branella in violation of rule 11 if the amended complaint was based on
the same facts as the prior state court lawsuit. 67 According to the court, Bra-
nella's amended complaint was "a rambling narrative, which 68
is organized
and drafted so poorly that it is often difficult to comprehend.,
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 (b)(2) contains language similar in
substance to the first sentence of rule 3.1 of the Model Rules of Professional
Conduct.69 In Balthazar,the federal judge found Branella in violation of rule
1 (b)(2) for his failure to state a cognizable legal claim; the judge ordered
Branella to complete a continuing legal education course on Federal Practice
and Procedure and another
70
on Attorney Professionalism and the Rules of
Professional Conduct.
In Carlino v. Gloucester City High School,71 a number of high school
students could not participate in graduation exercises because they became
intoxicated on the senior class trip.72 Prior to the trip, the students had signed
a statement saying that any student consuming alcoholic beverages on the
trip would be excluded from graduation exercises and would possibly not
graduate.73 Malat, the students' attorney, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that
the students' exclusion from graduation exercises violated the students' 74
con-
stitutional rights and caused them and their parents emotional distress.
63. 279 F. Supp. 2d 574 (D. N.J. 2003).

64. Id.at 578.
65. Id.at 579.
66. Id.
67. Id. at 594 n.18.
68. Balthazar,279 F. Supp. 2d at 581.
69. Compare FED. R. Civ. P. I I (b)(2) with MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 3.1.
70. Balthazar,279 F. Supp. 2d at 595.
71. No. 00-5262, 2002 WL 1877011, at *1 (3d Cir. 2002).
72. Id.at *1.
73. Id.
74. Id.

The district court found "a flagrant failure to conduct any legal research
violates Mr. Malat's obligations under rule 11 (b). 75 If Malat had performed
"[e]ven a casual investigation, let alone [a] reasonable inquiry" he would
have determined that a number of the claims were barred by statute. 76 The
appellate court affirmed the trial court order that Malat complete two con-
tinuing legal education courses and pay a $500 fine. 7
In Brandt v. Schal Associates, Inc.,78 the appellate court affirmed an
award of $443,564.66 in attorneys' fees and costs against plaintiff's attor-
ney. 79 The attorney filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act (RICO) lawsuit and pursued the lawsuit80
for a number of years even
though there were no facts to support it.
In addition to the requirement that the attorney provide a basis in law
and fact, that basis must be true. Courts do not take kindly to finding that
they have been presented with a false statement of law or fact.
VII. TRUE STATEMENT
Rule 3.3(a)(1) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct prohibits an

attorney from making a false statement to a court. 81 The rule provides: "[a]
lawyer shall not knowingly ... make a false statement of fact or law to a
tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously
made to the tribunal by the lawyer. '82 In the following cases, attorneys were83
sanctioned or referred for disciplinary action when they misstated the facts.
In Dube v. Eagle Global Logistics, 84 the court sanctioned appellants'
law firm $71,117.75, representing the attorney's fees and costs Eagle in-
curred defending the appeal.8 5 The court stated that the briefs prepared by
75. Id.
76. Carlino,2002WL 1877011, at*l.
77. Id at *2. In Vandeventer v. Wabash Nat'l Corp., 893 F. Supp. 827, 849-50 (N.D.
Ind. 1995), the plaintiffs had claimed quid pro quo sexual harassment and repeated the claim
numerous times even though the court found no factual or legal basis for the claim. "[Tihe
Attorneys were essentially ostriches who turned a blind eye to the law when they had no facts
to support their claim-a blindness that persisted throughout." Id. at 850. The court ordered
the two plaintiffs' attorneys sanctioned $500 each or to attend a continuing legal education
seminar "on the substantive provisions of sexual harassment." Id. at 833.
78. 960 F.2d 640 (7th Cir. 1992).
79. Id. at 645, 652.
80. Id. at 642.
81. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 3.3(a)(1).
83. Id.
83. Id.
84. 314 F.3d 193, 195 (5th Cir. 2002), vacated as moot (5th Cir. Feb. 4, 2003).
85. Id.
the appellants' law firm were "noncompliant" as they "contained 'specious

arguments' and had 'grossly distorted' the record through the ' use of ellipses
to misrepresent the statements and orders of the district court. " 6
In Florida Breckinridge, Inc. v. Solvay Pharmaceuticals,Inc.,87 both
parties were drug companies and in the lawsuit the attorneys "engaged in a
pattern of practice designed to mislead and confuse the court regarding the
regulatory status of their clients's [sic] drugs."88 The court referred the mat-
ter to its disciplinary committee.89
In Hurlbert v. Gordon,90 the court sanctioned Hurlbert's attorneys $750
for their "laissez-faire legal briefing."'" The numerous misstatements in the
brief frustrated both the court and opposing counsel. 92 "[N]umerous refer-
ences to clerk's papers ... were either non-existent, or difficult if not impos-
sible to find, because of typographical errors in the references."93 Also, "[o]n
several occasions the pages cited were irrelevant to the factual statements for
which the references were made." 94 In addition, "in several instances case
citations contained typographical errors and in numerous other instances
cases were cited which did not support the positions for which they were
cited." 95
In Sobol v. CapitalManagement Consultants, Inc.,96 the Supreme Court
of Nevada sanctioned an attorney $5000 because the attorney misrepresented
a stipulated fact and quoted a portion of a case as if it were the case holding
rather than language from the dissent.97 The court termed these "statements
of guile and delusion." 9
In Precision Specialty Metals, Inc. v. United States,99 the United States
Court of International Trade contemplated holding Department of Justice
attorney Walser in contempt of court "for misquoting and failing to quote
86. Id. at 194-95.

87. Fla. Breckenridge, Inc. v. Solvay Pharm., Inc., No. 98-4606, 1999 WL 292667, at *1
(11 thCir. May 11, 1999).
88. Id. at *9.
89. Id.
90. 824 P.2d 1238 (Wash. Ct. App. 1992).
91. Id. at 1245-46 (quotations omitted).
92. Id. at 1245.
93. Id.
94. ld.
95. Hulbert, 824 P.2d at 1245. The court found that the attorneys had violated a court
rule that requires reference to the record. Id. "Virtually all of the factual statements made in
the argument section of the brief were made without reference to the record .. " Id.
96. 726 P.2d 335 (Nev. 1986).
97. Id. at 337.
98. Id.
99. 315 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2003).

fully from two judicial opinions in a motion for reconsideration she signed
and filed."' 0 0 In Precision,the government's response to Precision's motion
for summary judgment was due by May 5, 2000.101 The day prior to the
deadline, the government requested a thirty-day extension. 0 2 The court de-
nied the request on May 10 and ordered the government to file its response
"forthwith."' °3 After the government filed its response on May 22, the court
struck it as untimely.10 4 Walser then filed a motion for reconsideration,
which contained several quoted passages 05
from cases in which the courts at-
tempted to define the term "forthwith."'
The quoted passages in the motion for reconsideration omitted a citation
to a 1900 United States Supreme Court case and a quotation from the case,
"[i]n matters of practice and pleading ['forthwith'] is usually construed, and
sometimes defined by rule of court, as within twenty-four hours."' 0 6 The
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court's formal
reprimand of Walser, stating: "She violated Rule 11 because, in quoting
from and citing published opinions, she distorted what the opinions stated by
leaving out significant portions of the citations or cropping one of them, and
failed to10 7 show that she and not the court has supplied the emphasis in one of
them."
The obligation to perform adequate legal research carries with it the
ethical requirement that the attorney must disclose adverse authority that the
attorney knew or should have known. The following cases involve attorneys
who knew or should have known of adverse authority because either the at-
torney or the attorney's office previously had been involved in the case that
was the basis of the adverse authority.
VIII. DISCLOSURE OF ADVERSE AUTHORITY
Rule 3.3(a)(2) of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct requires the

attorney to disclose adverse authority to the court. 0 8 The rule provides: "A
lawyer shall not knowingly.., fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority
100. Id.at 1347.

101. Id.at 1348.
102. Id.
103. Id.
104. PrecisionSpecialty Metals, Inc., 315 F.3d at 1348.
105. Id.
106. Dickerman v. N. Trust Co., 176 U.S. 181, 193 (1900).
107. PrecisionSpecialty Metals, Inc., 315 F.3d at 1357.
108. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 3.3(a)(2).
in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to

the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel." 10 9
In Massey v. Prince George's County,'1 0 the government attorney failed
to disclose an adverse case in which the government had been a party.' 1 The
court ordered Prince George's County to show cause why it had not cited
Kopf v. Wing,' an on-point case that was directly adverse to the county. I
The court found it "troublesome" that the county had also been a defendant
in Kopf, but had failed to cite the case to the court.' 14 The court rejected the
county's second answer to the order to show cause, that Kopf did not make
new law and the Kopf facts are distinguishable from the Massey facts.' 15 The
county also commented that the county attorney who handled Kopf was 16a
different attorney than the attorney representing the county in Massey.
The court responded that the attorney's failure to cite Kopf violated rules 1.1
and 1.3 in that the attorney had an obligation to "pursu[e] applicable legal
authority in [a] timely fashion."117
'
In a more disturbing case, the attorney failed to inform the court of a
controlling, but adverse case.11 8 The court was understandably upset by this
omission because the attorney had been counsel to one of the parties in the
case.1 19 In Nachbaur v. American Transit Insurance Co.,12 ° Nachbaur sued
the driver's insurance company for injuries Nachbaur, while a pedestrian,
allegedly received in an automobile accident.' 2 1 On appeal, the court stated
that the pedestrian was not the intended beneficiary of the insurance policy
and could not maintain an action alleging a bad faith breach of the insurance
109. Id.In Northwestern Nat'l Ins. Co. v. Guthrie, No. 90-C-04050, 1990 WL 205945, at
*2 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 3, 1990), the court warned defense counsel of a near violation of the Illinois
ethics rule equivalent of Model Rule 3.3. "This failure to disclose relevant legal authority
borders perilously close to a violation of the legal profession's ethical canons." Id.The attor-
ney had cited to a line of cases discussing the rule of law but had failed to explain the excep-
tion to the rule, which was applicable to the case under consideration. Id.The attorney had
quoted from a case but omitted the sentence following the quoted language, which discussed
the exception to the rule of law. Id.
110. 918 F. Supp. 905 (D. Md. 1996).
111. Id. at 906.
112. 942 F.2d 265 (4th Cir. 1991).
113. Massey, 918 F. Supp. at 906.
114. Id.
115. Id. at 907-08.
116. Id.at 906-07.
117. Id.at908.
118. Nachbaur v. Am. Transit Ins. Co., 752 N.Y.S.2d 605, 607 (N.Y. App. Div. 2002),
appeal dismissed 785 N.E.2d 730 (N.Y. 2003).
119. Id.
120. Id.at 605.
121. Id.at 606.

policy.1 22 The court chastised Moore, the plaintiffs attorney, for failure to
cite to adverse authority. 123 "The failure is especially glaring in this case
since plaintiffs attorney represented the losing appellant in Bettan ... a Sec-
ond Department case issued a matter of weeks before plaintiffs reply brief
on the instant appeal was submitted, which precisely addresses five out of six
of plaintiffs causes of action ....
Courts have no difficulty punishing attorneys whose conduct is so bla-
tantly unprofessional. In the heat of litigation, the attorney may be tempted
to ridicule or impugn the integrity of opposing counsel. Such ad hominem
attacks are unprofessional, if groundless, and also unethical, as discussed in
the following section.
IX. STATEMENT CONCERNING OTHERS
Rule 4.4(a) of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct prohibits an at-

torney from making baseless accusations about others.1 25 In the following
case, the attorney was sanctioned for making groundless accusations against
opposing counsel. 26 The rule provides: "In representing a client, a lawyer
shall not use means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass,
delay, or burden a third person, or use ' methods
27
of obtaining evidence that
violate the legal rights of such a person.'
122. Id.
123. Nachbaur,752 N.Y.S.2d at 607.
124. Id. at 607. Failure to cite to adverse authority seems to have been the least of
Moore's worries. Moore's conduct would be a violation of rules 1.1, 3.1, 3.3(a), 4.4(a), and
8.2(a). Moore failed to provide citations in his appellate brief and the court characterized the
appeal as frivolous. Id. "The 4 1/2 and 3 1/2-page appellate briefs submitted by plaintiffs
attorney, completely devoid of relevant discussion, are vividly reflective of the appeal's utter
lack of even arguable merit." Id. In addition, Moore insulted opposing counsel, made un-
founded allegations concerning the trial court, and made inaccurate statements concerning the
record. Id. The court stated that:
[P]laintiffs attorney replicates the conduct sanctioned in the Supreme
Court by repeating the insult directed at opposing counsel, adds to that in-
sult with new invective, makes baseless, serious accusations against the
motion court, makes unsupported accusations against defendant, seriously
mischaracterizes the record and makes no reference to recent adverse au-
thority.
Nachbaur, 752 N.Y.S.2d at 607. The appellate court affirmed sanctions of $5000 against
Moore and ordered Moore to pay defendant's reasonable attorneys' fees for defending against
the appeal. Id. at 606.
125. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 4.4(a).
126. Thomas v. Tenneco Packaging Co., 293 F.3d 1306, 1308 (11th Cir. 2002).
Attorney Munson filed a federal lawsuit, Thomas v. Tenneco Packaging

Co.,128 claiming that Tenneco had discriminated against Thomas on the basis
of his race. 29 At the trial level, Munson filed documents containing "insult-
ing remarks about defense counsel's physical traits and demeanor; remarks
that called into question defense counsel's fitness as a member of the bar;
thinly veiled physical threats directed at defense counsel; a racial slur; and
unsubstantiated claims that defense counsel was a racist."' 3 ° The district
court censured and reprimanded Munson. 131 In addition, the court ordered
any further similar documents filed 132
by Munson were to be stricken, after
notice and opportunity for hearing.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed what
the district court had done under its inherent power, noting that Munson had
"exhibited a pattern of baseless accusations and invective."' 133 In addition,
the court noted that in Munson's appellate brief, she had "made insulting and
demeaning remarks about the district judge, such as by calling him 'a protec-
134
torate of white America."", One of the ethics rules referenced by the Elev-
135
enth Circuit was rule 4.4 of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct,
which is identical
36
in wording to rule 4.4 of the Model Rules of Professional
Conduct.1
Almost unimaginable is the practice of some attorneys of making base-
less accusations about a judge. This conduct is an ethics violation, as dis-
cussed in the following section.
X. STATEMENT REGARDING JUDGE
Rule 8.2(a) prohibits an attorney from impugning the integrity of the

judge or other court personnel. 137 The rule provides: "A lawyer shall not
128. 293 F.3d 1306 (1lth Cir. 2002).

129. Id. at 1308.
130. Id. at 1331.
131. Id. at 1308.
132. Id. at 1329.
133. Thomas, 293 F.3d at 1331.
134. Id. This conduct could have violated the ethics rule discussed in the following sec-
tion.
135. Id. at 1323.
136. See MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 4.4(a); GA. RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R.
3.1 (a).
137. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 8.2(a). In Henry v. Eberhard,832 S.W.2d 467,
474 (Ark. 1992), the court struck a number of pages from the appellants' brief because the
pages contained "inflammatory and disrespectful" statements concerning the lower courts. In
State v. Rossmanith, 430 N.W.2d 93, 94 (Wis. 1988), the Supreme Court of Wisconsin did not
sanction the appellant's attorney, although it could have for disparaging the lower court.

make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard
as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge,
adjudicatory officer or public legal officer .... ,138
In In re Wilkins, 139 the Supreme Court of Indiana decided that attorney
Wilkins should be suspended from the practice of law because of language in
a brief.140 In his brief, which supported a petition to transfer the case to the
Supreme Court of Indiana, Wilkins criticized the lower court.' 4 ' A portion of
the text of the brief stated:
The Court of Appeals' published Opinion in this case is quite dis-

turbing. It is replete with misstatements of material facts, it mis-
applies controlling case law, and it does not even bother to discuss
relevant cases that are directly on point. Clearly, such a decision
should be reviewed by this Court. Not only does it work an injus-
tice on appellant Michigan Mutual Insurance Company, it estab-
lishes dangerous precedent in several areas of the law.42 This will
undoubtedly create additional problems in future cases.
The last sentence of the above-quoted text was footnoted at note 2.143
Note 2 stated: "Indeed, the Opinion is so factually and legally inaccurate that
one is left to wonder whether the Court of Appeals was determined to find
for Appellee Sports, Inc., and then said whatever was necessary to reach that
conclusion
144
(regardless of whether the facts or the law supported its deci-
sion)."
In Notopoulos v. Statewide Grievance Committee, 145 an attorney ac- 46
cused a judge of improprieties regarding the attorney's mother's estate.
When the attorney appealed the lower court's decision to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, the
attorney fashioned the petition as a letter to the lower court:
You are probably quite smug about your decision in this case ....You think you managed to
avoid deciding the case all together. Sorry I can't congratulate you on this clever evasion of a
precedential statutory interpretation. This may come as something of a shock, but you didn't
avoid an interpretation of the insanity law with a major impact in this state ....If all of this
seems theoretical, think again ....I will, of course, ask the supreme court to grant review.
But between you and me, that should not be necessary. You should withdraw your decision in
this case ....You should do the job yourselves.
Id. at 93 n.2.
139. 777 N.E.2d 714 (Ind. 2002), stay granted,778 N.E.2d 1290 (Ind.2002).
140. Id.
141. Id.
142. Id.
143. Id. at n.2.
144. Wilkins, 777 N.E.2d at 715-16.
145. No. CV010510911S,2003 WL 22293599, at *1 (Conn. Super. Ct. Sept. 24, 2003).
146. Id.
The attorney was sanctioned by reprimand even though the attorney was not
representing a party to the case.147 Attorney Joseph Notopoulos formerly had
some disagreements with Judge Berman regarding Notopoulos's mother's
estate.148 After the case was concluded, Notopoulos sent a letter to a member
of the court staff criticizing Judge Berman.149 The attorney claimed that
Judge Berman "has clearly prostituted the integrity of his office and is pres-
ently running it as a financial spoils system for [his] cronies."'' 50 The attor-
ney stated that:
[H]ardly all-inclusive of these abuses is his reprehensible extortion

from the undersigned, without legal authority, of money for his
crony[,] ... resorting to threats to impose upon the undersigned a
substantial conservator's cash bond or to dispatch a psychiatrist to
our residence to examine my mother and bill the estate .... 151
The attorney claimed that the judge placed "the financial greed of his cronies
above my mother's best interest and welfare with utter contempt for applica-
ble requirements of the Connecticut General Statutes to act in her best inter-
est., 15 The attorney added that "[b]ecause Mr. Berman has become not
merely an embarrassment to this community but a demonstrated financial
predator of its incapacitated and often dying elderly whose interests 1
he is
charged with the protection," the attorney asked that the judge resign. 53
Notopoulos was charged with violating rules 8.2(a) and 8.4(4) of the
Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct.5 4 On appeal, the court dis-
agreed with Notopoulos's argument that he could not have violated rule
8.2(a) because he was acting in his individual capacity as a relative rather
than in his representative capacity as an attorney. 55 The court found that the
rule applies to an attorney, even when the attorney is not representing a cli-
ent.' 56 The court also found that Notopoulos had violated rules 8.2(a) and
147. Id. at *3.

148. Id.at*1.
149. Id.
150. Notopoulos, 2003 WL 22293599, at *1.
151. Id.
152. Id.
153. Id. The language of rule 8.4(4) of the state rules coincides with rule 8.4(d) of the
Model Rules. Rule 8.4 of the Model Rules is discussed in the following section.
154. See id. Notopoulos had been charged under rule 3.5(3) with disrupting a tribunal.
Notopoulos, 2003 WL 22293599, at *1. The court found that Notopoulos had not violated
rule 3.5(3) because there was no clear and convincing evidence that he had intended to disrupt
a tribunal. Id. at *5.
155. Id at *3.
156. Id.

8.4(4) because there was no basis in fact for the allegations against the judge
in Notopoulos's letter.157
False statements, baseless allegations, and misrepresentations of fact are
parallel to the theft of another person's work through plagiarism. Plagiarism
committed by an attorney reflects poorly on the legal profession and is con-
trary to the ethics rules. The following section discusses a case in which an
attorney was sanctioned for plagiarism.
XI. HONESTY
Rule 8.4 of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct requires the attor-

ney to refrain from conduct reflecting adversely on the attorney's position as
an officer of the court. 15 8 In the following case, the attorney violated the rule
by plagiarizing a major portion of a brief filed with the court. 159 The rule
provides in relevant part:
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

(a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct,
knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the
acts of another;
(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's
honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or mis-
representation;
(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of
justice."'
In Iowa Supreme Court Board of Professional Ethics & Conduct v.

Lane,16' attorney Lane submitted a post-trial brief to the court and requested
$16,000 in attorney's fees for writing the brief.162 Later it was discovered
that Lane plagiarized a treatise in writing the brief.163 "The legal argument of
Lane's post-trial brief consisted of eighteen pages of plagiarized material,
including both text and footnotes, from the treatise ....Lane cherry-picked
the relevant portions and renumbered the footnotes to reflect the altered
157. Id. at *4--5.

158. See MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 8.4.
159. See Iowa Supreme Court Bd. of Prof'l Ethics & Conduct v. Lane, 642 N.W.2d 296
(Iowa 2002).
161. 642 N.W.2d 296.
162. Id. at 298.
163. Id.at 298-99.
text." The similarity between the treatise and the brief was so great that
the "brief 65does not reveal any independent labor or thought in the legal ar-
gument."'
The Ethics Board charged Lane with violating the state ethics rule that
is similar in wording to subsections (b), (c), and (d) of rule 8.4 of the Model
Rules of ProfessionalConduct.166 The Ethics Board recommended a three
month suspension for Lane from the practice of law; however, the Supreme
Court of Iowa suspended Lane for six months because Lane had "jeopardized1 67
the integrity of the Bar and the public's trust in the legal profession.
XII. ANALYSIS OF A CASE WITH A COMBINATION OF ETHICAL ERRORS
Bradshaw
deficiencies v. Unity
in the Marineperformance.
attorneys' Corp.161 is a case thatcase,
In the illustrates
seamana number of
Bradshaw
164. Id. at 300.

165. Id. Lane was not an isolated incident, and other courts have dealt with attorneys who
plagiarized. In In re Harper,645 N.Y.S.2d 846, 847 (N.Y. App. Div. 1996), Harper enrolled
in an L.L.M. program at Pace University School of Law. Harper plagiarized a research paper
in one of his classes by submitting a published article as his own writing. Id. Because of
Harper's remorse, Harper's otherwise good reputation, and the fact that the plagiarism was a
single incident, the court censured Harper. Id. at 847-48. In In re Hinden, 654 A.2d 864, 865
(D.C. 1995), Hinden had already been censured by the Supreme Court of Illinois for plagiariz-
ing, by incorporating twenty-three pages of an article word-for-word into Hinden's chapter in
a treatise. The District of Columbia Court decided to censure Hinden also. Id. In In re
Steinberg, 620 N.Y.S.2d 345, 346 (N.Y. App. Div. 1994), Steinberg submitted two writing
samples, a requirement of the New York Court of Appeals to be appointed to represent those
charged with felonies. When it was discovered that the writing samples were not his,
Steinberg was publicly censured. Id. In In re Zbiegien, 433 N.W.2d 871, 872 (Minn. 1988),
Zbiegien plagiarized almost all of twelve pages of a research paper he wrote for his fourth
year in law school by including passages of law review articles without crediting the sources.
The court considered the plagiarism a "single incident" and decided that the incident would
not keep Zbiegien from being admitted to the bar. Id. at 877. In In re Lamberis, 443 N.E.2d
549, 550 (Ill. 1982), attorney Lamberis enrolled in an LL.M. program at Northwestern Uni-
versity School of Law. Pages thirteen through fifty-nine of his ninety-three page master's
thesis incorporated portions of two books without crediting the authors. Id. Northwestern
expelled Lamberis. Id. at 550-552. Before the Supreme Court of Illinois, Lamberis argued
that he should not be disciplined because he was not practicing law when the incident oc-
curred. Id. at 551. The court disagreed and decided that Lamberis should be censured. Id. at
551-553. In Frith v. State, 325 N.E.2d 186, 188 (Ind. 1975), Frith's brief contained a collec-
tion of material plagiarized from other sources, including ten pages of an American Law Re-
ports annotation. The court briefly mentioned the plagiarism and moved on to consider the
rest of the case, noting that attorneys' fees may take the plagiarism into account. Id. at 188-
89.
166. Lane, 642 N.W.2d at 299.
167. Id. at 297, 302.
168. 147 F. Supp. 2d 668 (S.D. Tex. 2001).

NOVA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 29:1:49
alleged that he had been injured while working on a ship docked at Phillips
Petroleum Company's dock.' 69 Bradshaw sued his employer, Unity Marine,
within two years of the injury and sued Phillips within three years of the in-
jury. 7 ' The case came before the court on Phillips' motion for summary
judgment in which Phillips claimed that the action against Phillips was
barred by the state law two-year statute of limitations rather than the mari-
time law three-year statute of limitations. 7 '
Bradshaw provided no details about the type of injury he incurred or
how he was injured."' Phillips failed to support its motion with relevant
authority as to why the two-year statute of limitations applied and provided
no legal analysis of its argument. 7 3 In response, Bradshaw failed to direct
the court to relevant case law, gave an incorrect citation, lacked a pinpoint
reference to a case that was not on-point, and failed to provide legal analysis
of Bradshaw's claim against Phillips.'74
The court quickly resolved the motion for summary judgment by citing
to two cases from the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 75 Those cases
stated that any duty of the dock owner to the seaman is under state law and
not maritime law. 1 76 Based on those cases, the court concluded that the
Texas two-year statute of limitations would apply and granted Phillips's mo-
77
tion for summary judgment. 1
The attorneys had the bad luck of being before Samuel B. Kent, a fed-
eral judge for the Southern District of Texas. 78 Judge Kent has been nick-
named "Judge Seinfeld" for his humorous legal opinions.' 79 The word "criti-
cism" is mild compared to what Judge Kent metes out to the attorneys.8 0
"[T]his case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together de-
livered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed
causeway into Galveston ...,,181 The judge explains that the:
169. Id.at 669.

170. Id.
171. Id.
172. Id.
173. Bradshaw, 147 F.Supp. 2d at 671-72.
174. Id.at 670-71.
175. Id.at 671.
176. Id
177. Id at 671-72.
178. Bradshaw, 147 F.Supp. 2d at 669.
179. Jenny B. Davis, The Limelight Rules: Some Celebrity Judges Just Can't Help Getting
Big Heaps ofAttention, 88 A.B.A. J.28, 28 (Apr. 2002).
180. See Bradshaw, 147 F. Supp. 2d at 668.
181. Id. at 670.
[Aittorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact--complete

with hats, handshakes and cryptic words-to draft their pleadings
entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place
mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their
child-like efforts that their utter
2
dearth of legal authorities in their
briefing would go unnoticed.11
The judge explained relevant case law regarding whether state law or
maritime law applied in one paragraph. 183 This contrasts with the attorneys
who were unable to provide relevant law and legal analysis. 8 4 "Take heed
and be suitably awed, oh boys and girls-the Court was able to state the is-
sue and its resolution in one paragraph ... despite dozens of pages of gibber-
ish from the parties to the contrary!' 85 In the following paragraph, Judge
Kent concluded that the two-year statute of limitations applied and granted
Phillips's motion for summary judgment. 186 "[H]aving received no useful
guidance whatever from either party, the Court has endeavored, primarily
based upon its affection for both counsel, but also out of its own sense of
morbid curiosity, to resolve what it perceived to be the legal issue pre-
18 7
sented.'
Even though the propriety of Judge Kent's opinion may be ques-
tioned, 8 8 Bradshaw received wide circulation on the Internet and was pub-
lished in Legal Times. 189 From Bradshaw, one may glean that the perform-
ance of the attorneys was deficient in a number of respects. 9 They appar-
ently failed to perform adequate research, and their writing was deficient.' 91
Neither attorney developed the analysis of the legal argument. 192 Brad-
shaw's attorney failed to provide basic facts concerning Bradshaw's injury,
182. Id.
183. Id.at 671-72.
184. Id. at 670-71.
185. Bradshaw, 147 F. Supp. 2d at 672 n.3.
186. Id. at 672.
187. Id.
188. Steven Lubet, Bullying from the Bench, 5 GREEN BAG 2d 11, 11 (2001). Professor
Lubet claimed that Judge Kent engaged in bullying. Id. at 12. "By belittling the lawyers who
appear before him, Judge Kent used his authority to humiliate people who-in the courtroom
environment-are comparatively powerless." Id. at 12. "[L]aughter at the ill fate of others-
even when they are bunglers-just enables further victimization. Judge Kent, and others like
him, need to know that ridicule isn't funny. It's just mean. It isn't judging, it's just showing
off." Id. at 16.
189. Id. at I In.1.
190. See Bradshaw, 147 F. Supp. 2d at 670-72.
191. Id.at670-71.
192. Id.

provided an incorrect case citation,193and omitted a pinpoint reference to rele-

vant material in a forty-page brief.
The Bradshaw attorneys faced humiliation, but they also could have
faced4 discipline for violating some of the ethics rules discussed in this arti-
19
cle.
XIII. CONCLUSION
Although seemingly minor, grammatical errors may indicate that there

is a problem with the substance of the document, and more scrutiny is war-
ranted. The attorney's stock in trade is a good reputation, and problems with
legal research or errors in citation may contribute to the attorney's loss of
credibility. The examples of ethics violations contained in this article show
that even tiny problems with legal research and legal writing leave the attor-
ney open for ethics violations.
Imagine the attorney's chagrin at reading a case in which the attorney
was sanctioned and knowing that the case is a lasting legacy, to be read by
generations of attorneys. One court gave the following career advice: "The
Attorneys should give serious consideration to not practicing in the United
States District Court until such time as they have demonstrably enhanced
their practice skills."' 95 Imagine the client reading one of these cases. The
client would be bound to lose faith in the attorney and may feel that a legal
malpractice lawsuit is warranted. As far as the public is concerned, the at-
torney's conduct reflects poorly on the legal system.
The majority of attorneys conduct themselves ethically. They faithfully
perform any necessary legal research and try to write well. As shown by the
cases discussed in this article, however, there are a number of attorneys
whose legal research and writing falls below the standard expected by the
client and the court.
To a diligent, ethically-minded attorney, the acts discussed in this article
for which attorneys were disciplined are almost unimaginable. This conduct
represents one end of the spectrum. Even so, the competent attorney should
be mindful of these cases and take them as a reminder of the legal research
and legal writing obligations owed the client and the court. Often, an attor-
ney is pressured by a looming deadline or by the client to take shortcuts.
Skimping on research or writing can lead to ethics violations. A momentary
lapse of good judgment may place an attorney in the same predicament.
193. Id. at 670-71.

194. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 8.4; Bradshaw, 147 F. Supp. 2d at 670-72.
195. Vandeventer, 893 F. Supp. at 859 n.43.
2004] ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS 73
As an officer of the court, the attorney owes a duty to the judge. Courts
attempt to make the right decisions and rely on attorneys to provide the court
with information. This relationship is subverted by the attorney who does
not fulfill his or her obligation to perform adequate legal research and write
well. An officer of the court should help the judge, and not add to the
judge's workload. When reading the cases cited in this article, one can feel
the frustration of the court.
The duty to the client is to provide the best representation possible.
Obviously, the attorneys in the cases cited in this article performed a disser-
vice to their clients by providing substandard representation. In addition,
poor attorney performance damages the public's respect for the legal system.

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Nova Law Review

Volume 29, Issue 1 2004 Article 4

Ethical Obligations: Performing Adequate

Carol M. Bast∗ Susan W. Harrell†

ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS: PERFORMING

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 1

II. ADEQUATE LEGAL RESEARCH

Rule 1.1 of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct requires the attor-

1. MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 1.1 (2004).

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 3

III. COMPLIANCE WITH COURT RULES

If an attorney fulfills the obligation to perform adequate research and in

16. Id.at 152.

In In re O'Brien,2 1 the court dismissed the appeal because the appellant

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 5

In Catellier v. Depco, Inc.,24 Ziobron, Catellier's attorney, was ordered

recognize that it is unreasonable to expect every attorney in Wisconsin to construct arguments

IV. ADEQUATE WRITING

The competence required under rule 1.1 includes adequate writing

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 7

An attorney must comply with deadlines or be subject to sanctions.5 °

45. Id. at 771.

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 9

VI. BASIS IN LAW AND FACT

56. Id.at 324-25.

63. 279 F. Supp. 2d 574 (D. N.J. 2003).

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 11

VII. TRUE STATEMENT

Rule 3.3(a)(1) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct prohibits an

the appellants' law firm were "noncompliant" as they "contained 'specious

86. Id. at 194-95.

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 13

VIII. DISCLOSURE OF ADVERSE AUTHORITY

Rule 3.3(a)(2) of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct requires the

100. Id.at 1347.

in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 15

IX. STATEMENT CONCERNING OTHERS

Rule 4.4(a) of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct prohibits an at-

Attorney Munson filed a federal lawsuit, Thomas v. Tenneco Packaging

X. STATEMENT REGARDING JUDGE

Rule 8.2(a) prohibits an attorney from impugning the integrity of the

128. 293 F.3d 1306 (1lth Cir. 2002).

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 17

The Court of Appeals' published Opinion in this case is quite dis-

[H]ardly all-inclusive of these abuses is his reprehensible extortion

147. Id. at *3.

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 19

Rule 8.4 of the Model Rules of ProfessionalConduct requires the attor-

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

In Iowa Supreme Court Board of Professional Ethics & Conduct v.

157. Id. at *4--5.

XII. ANALYSIS OF A CASE WITH A COMBINATION OF ETHICAL ERRORS

164. Id. at 300.

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 21

169. Id.at 669.

[Aittorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact--complete

Published by NSUWorks, 2004 23