Lawyer Sanctioned for Plagiarism
September 07, 2007
An Iowa lawyer copied-and-pasted nine pages from a law review, without attribution, into his brief. The court was no happy, and thus ordered the lawyer to attend a professional responsibility class at a local law school. Imagine being a law student in class with this lawyer. "So, what are you in for?" "Plagiarism."
Of course, I have seen a great deal of language lifted from my briefs and put into opinions. Which is usually a good thing - except when it's just a general rule statement rather than an application of the rule to the client's facts. If the court is as strict with other judges as he is with other lawyers, then there will be a lot of judges going back to school.
I am not, of course, defending the lawyer's conduct. What he did was pretty bad: It's surely not something you'd want your name plastered all over the Internet with for doing it. And I'd like to read his bill to his client to see how much he billed his client for the brief he "wrote."
UPDATE: Via TaxProf Blog:
Mr. Cannon's second violation of the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct was in charging his client $5,737.50 for 25.5 hours of work in preparing the two briefs. This amount is unreasonable given the actual labor Mr. Cannon invested in these projects. ... Mr. Cannon billed his client for 25.5 hours of work to prepare the two briefs. Because he could not have expended that number of hours in locating the Article, copying it into his word processing program, and adding what little material he did, his fees are far in excess of what other lawyers would charge for this amount and type of work.
The court ordered him to give his client a refund.