What’s all this?

Nothing on this site is legal advice. The information on this website is educational and informational content for for lawyers, law students, and other legal professionals. The views expressed here are mine, not JAMS’s or anyone else’s. This site’s contents are provided as is because (1) the law is always changing, so the information here might be out of date; (2) sometimes other people disagree with my view of the law; and (3) I’m a human being who can make errors....

After the hearing mom goes online to complain about attorney She posts to various review sites and social media She alleges the attorney used the email she sent against her She says the attorney never disclosed representation of dad Attorney responds on each site, “I deny all these allegations” Paralegal replies on Facebook, “Didn’t use your lies about exchanges!” Questions Is attorney’s denial unethical? Is paralegal’s post unethical?...

Paralegal posts to personal Facebook: Boss got a big win! Drinks on us! Attorney tweets (Xes?): Another dad gets his rights! Who wants to be next? Attorney posts LinkedIn article: California law finally understands that smoking pot is not child abuse On firm’s blog, attorney writes: Groundbreaking case in our favor. Email us for details. Questions Is paralegal’s Facebook post a solicitation?...

Dad tells attorney that he used to have medical marijuana card Dad has let it lapse because of new laws Dad wants to know how the lapse might affect custody Attorney posts details to matrimonial lawyers listserv, asking for input Question Can attorney post details on listserv?

Mom hires a different lawyer Dad’s lawyer and paralegal capture mom’s social media postings To get the good stuff, paralegal sends a friend request to mom Paralegal does not identify himself as attorney’s paralegal Dad’s attorney does not inform opposing counsel Questions Can attorney monitor mom’s social media? Can paralegal friend mom?

Paralegal receives unsolicited email from potential client (mom)? Mom describes custody/visitation dispute Email describes what happens during exchanges After finishing email, paralegal realizes dad is a current client Questions Does the attorney owe a duty of confidentiality to mom? Should the attorney tell mom? What if mom has a lawyer? Should the attorney resign from representing dad?

Jackson Lucky has been a neutral with JAMS since August 2021. He serves as a mediator, arbitrator, and private judge for civil and family law cases. Before joining JAMS, Judge Lucky served on the Riverside Superior Court for thirteen years. His assignments included unlimited civil and family law. Judge Lucky was the supervising judge of the family law division from 2012 to 2016 and the criminal supervising judge from 2017 until 2019....

I’ve been playing with Go recently. I like it. I’d read about Go and watched a few videos about it, but I’d never spent time writing Go in the editor. I use Hugo, a static site generator written in Go to make this site, so I thought it made sense to take the language for a spin. What I like about Go: It’s a small language, which makes it easier to learn....

Intro I’ve been learning the Go programming language in earnest this week. (See Why Go.) I believe that test-driven development (TDD) makes me write better code, so I wanted to start with tests. Testing and assertions I found an excellent paid resource, The Go Testing Bible video series. The author, Elliot Forbes, posts free videos on his TutorialEdge YouTube channel. Go has a robust testing package in its standard library. However, the testing syntax looked strange to me because it doesn’t use test assertions like I’m used to from languages like Node (JavaScript), Ruby, Python, and (my favorite) Elm....

Use Git and lastmod frontmatter to add metadata for the date a post is updated