TRICK OR TREAT! -

As Halloween nears, and the Great Pumpkin readies itself to visit, the editors of the Halloween edition of the Lawyers’ Lawyer Newsletter invite you to enjoy the suspenseful but hair-raisingly narrow escape of a firm from the painful fate of disqualification. Share our gut-wrenching horror as we contemplate lawyers found personally liable for the firm’s failure to pay trust fund taxes. View with terror and disgust what can happen when a lawyer is not sufficiently clear in terminating an engagement. Finally, gaze upon the terrible results of incomplete lateral hire screening. We hope these horror stories will frighten and delight just in time for All Hallows’ Eve.

Trick or Treat Editors’ Note: We begin our Halloween celebration with a delicious and richly-deserved treat—the success of a well-crafted engagement agreement and a timely termination letter. Lawyers who carefully describe the scope of engagement and consistently document termination of the client relationship avoid dastardly and hurtful tricks like disqualification and civil liability.