A CIVILITY PROBLEM CAN IMPACT AN ATTORNEY’S FEES MOTION Karton v. Ari Design (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 734 holds that a trial court can consider a prevailing party’s incivility in ruling on a motion for attorney’s fees. (Id. at p. 738.) In that matter, Karton, an attorney, and his wife had a dispute with a remodeling contractor over whether the contractor owed them $35,096, as the couple contended, or $13,000, as the contractor claimed. The Kartons…
DEFAULT MOTIONS – PROFESSIONALISM/CIVILITY – ABUSE OF DISCRETION LaSalle v. Vogel (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 127 provides Justice William Bedsworth, writing for the Court, with a platform to talk about the big picture issue of declining civility and professionalism in the practice of law, the more immediate problem that attorneys are rushing to file default motions without first talking to opposing counsel and that, in the instant matter, before it, the trial court abused its discretion…
MICHAEL D. MARCUS’S MEDIATION MESSAGE NO. 110 ATTORNEYS MAY NOT MAKE MISREPRESENTATIONS TO THE COURT Both the Business and Professions Code and the Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit attorneys from making misrepresentations to a judicial officer. Business and Professions Code section 6068, subdivision (d), provides that attorneys shall never “seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.” Rule of Professional Conduct 5-200(B), which adds…
MICHAEL D. MARCUS’S MEDIATION MESSAGE NO. 109 ATTORNEYS SHOULD HONOR AGREEMENTS WITH EACH OTHER A too common refrain or complaint is that attorneys don’t keep their promises to opposing counsel, such as in calendaring matters. While there is no specific ethical rule requiring that such promises be kept, it can be extrapolated from Bryant v. State Bar (1942) 21 Cal.2d 285 and Grove v. State Bar (1965) 63 Cal.2d 312 that the obligation exists in…
MICHAEL D. MARCUS’S MEDIATION MESSAGE NO. 103 CIVILITY PART 1– TREAT EACH OTHER WITH RESPECT In 2003, when I started writing Mediation Messages and Arbitration Insights, I commented only on subjects directly related to mediations and arbitrations. I broadened the base in 2011 by discussing case law that impacted litigation practice and, more particularly, admissible evidence at trial. Now, three years later, I’m going to devote some of these monthly messages to the lack of…