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Culver "Skip" Smith provides a wide range of services to lawyers, law firms, and other legal-industry professionals, including: Disqualifications and sanctions Malpractice prosecution and defense Expert witness on professional responsibility and fees Loss prevention and risk management For a lawyer, receiving a grievance notice from the Florida Bar can be devastating. Your license to practice law is on the line, and for most lawyers, the grievance process is a frightening mystery. With his deep knowledge of both the Bar's inner workings and the underlying ethical principles involved, Skip Smith has successfully guided hundreds of attorneys through bar-disciplinary proceedings. His clear-headed, rational approach enables attorneys to frame the best possible response to the Bar’s inquiry. If the matter proceeds beyond this first step, Skip’s extensive experience as a trial and appellate lawyer provides his clients with the advocacy and negotiation skills needed to pursue a favorable result with bar counsel, before a grievance committee, or in the Supreme Court of Florida. Probably every practicing lawyer considers himself or herself an ethical person. However, using “ethical” to define the standard by which to govern one’s conduct suggests that lawyers can navigate conflict-of-interest and other ethics issues on intuition alone. But not all of the ethics rules are intuitive. In situations that involve one or more rules, the right course of action can be unclear. When ethical questions arise, individual attorneys and law firms call on Skip Smith for informed interpretation of complex legal-ethics laws. With the help of his sophisticated knowledge of the law in this field, lawyers can work proactively to avoid costly bar complaints, malpractice suits, and other actions. Disqualifications and sanctions When opposing counsel seeks to disqualify you from a case or seeks sanctions against you, it's a mistake to defend yourself. Skip Smith's reputation as a highly credible legal-ethics expert makes him an ideal choice to assist in opposing either of these actions. Florida is known nationally as one of the toughest jurisdictions for bar admission. Many applicants don't realize they may need to provide detailed explanations of past actions to the Florida Bar as part of their character and fitness investigation. Skip Smith provides valuable assistance in properly framing answers to application questions and has successfully represented many applicants at hearings before the Florida Board of Bar Examiners. Attorneys from out of state, paralegals, and others may be accused of the unlicensed practice of law. Unfortunately, there is no bright line in the law on when unlicensed practice occurs. Skip Smith provides expertise in this evolving legal area and can guide clients on how best to proceed. Malpractice prosecution and defense Skip Smith is an invaluable source for drafting responses to threatened malpractice claims. If a case moves to litigation, he can be instrumental in assembling a qualified team to defend the case in court. Expert witness on professional responsibility and fees When an expert is needed to testify on industry practices, Skip Smith provides an informed, objective voice. His large body of knowledge on legal ethics and professional responsibility enables him to testify decisively on such issues as whether fiduciary duties have been breached and whether the standard of care has been met. Skip’s long experience also enables him to testify credibly on the reasonableness of fees. Lawyer mobility is a common phenomenon today. Individual lawyers or entire practice groups leave law firms either to join another firm or start their own. With increasing frequency, law firms merge or dissolve. These events give rise to many issues, both ethical and practical: Who gets the clients? How will clients be notified, and by whom? May a departing lawyer solicit the firm’s other lawyers and employees to leave? Who owns documents, forms, and other intellectual property created by the departing lawyer and others? In this often turbulent climate, Skip Smith provides valuable knowledge and an objective outlook as he helps lawyers and firms manage change. Loss prevention and risk management Skip Smith's expertise here includes training firm personnel in best practices for avoiding ethical problems. He can advise on how to design communication and workflow processes to encourage knowledge sharing and prevent conflicts of interest. Legal ethics is a complex and ever-changing field. Law firms and individual lawyers can keep their knowledge current through in-house seminars Skip Smith conducts on changing standards, gray areas to watch, and the effect of new ethics cases. To learn more about the wide array of services Skip Smith offers the legal profession, fill out his contact form or contact his office. |