Whether you are consulting the Mayan calendar, strained readings of Nostradamus quatrains, or the very real deadlines put out by the CLE Commission, it is clear that the end is near. This we know.

So even if you haven’t marked Dec. 21 as the day the world will end, like those in the Mayan Long Count calendar crowd believe, it’s not a bad time to take a look at some hypotheticals that raise ethics issues for lawyers that can be of the “end of the world” variety. And if you do so at an Ethics Roadshow presentation, you also will meet that very real Dec. 31 deadline set for completing your required ethics hours for 2012.

TBA ethics guru Brian Faughnan of Thomason Hendrix Harvey Johnson Mitchell PLLC is giving up what could be some of his last days on earth to make the presentation. (Go ahead, check out the Mayan calendar on Wikipedia) Mayan Long Count calendar



Likely topics will include:

• Your bank calls to tell you a check drawn on your firm’s trust account has bounced.

• Your client decides to try to fire you just a few days before their civil case is set to go to trial.

• You realize that your client has engaged in fraud in a transaction you are handling for them or has lied during the court proceedings in which you are representing him.

• Half of the other lawyers in your firm send you an email telling you they are leaving next week to start their own firm and plan on taking your biggest client with them when they go.

• You’ve died unexpectedly (and without a plan for protecting your clients’ interests after you are gone) and the lawyer sitting next to you has been tasked with trying to deal with the aftermath you have left behind in your office and your files.

SAVE MONEY: TBA members receive three hours of TennBarU CLE programming free with their TBA Complete Membership. You can use those credits to reduce the cost of this program. Not a TBA member, join now to start saving.