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Great News! New Jersey Lawyers Can Pay Referral Fees to Out-of-State Lawyers

New Jersey has strict rules with respect to fee sharing and referral fees in legal cases. In In re Opinion No. 745 of the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics the rules were relaxed a bit. As a threshold matter, Rule 1:39-6(d) sets forth exceptions to the general rule that New Jersey lawyers may not pay referral fees. However, RPC 1.5(e) does not relate to the attorney certification program. Ethics Opinion 745 reviewed...

Stop f*cking using AI for legal documents… Especially for legal briefs

In February 2025, the firm of Morgan & Morgan was sanctioned by a federal court judge for using AI-Generated “fake cases” in a court filing. Specifically, they cited to eight non-existent cases in motions filed with the court. Ya think Homer Simpson was in their office when they got that order and just kept hitting his head and saying “D’oh” repeatedly. Look. Lawyers have an obligation to check sources. In fact, there are a bunch...

Will the American Music Fairness Act finally pass?

On January 31, 2025, U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced the bipartisan Notably, the US does not allow for the payment of artists for the use of their music on AM/FM radio. This loophole is the subject of regular and repeated legislative efforts. It never seems to quite garner enough support to pass. Most terrestrial radio stations subscribe to licensing entities called performing rights organizations. They pay a flat fee to use the...

Who is the pot and who is the kettle: OpenAI “Investigating theft” by DeepSeek

Last week (end of January 2025) the stock market was rattled when DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company rolled out a new open-source reasoning model, which some say is as good as ChatGPT. (Apparently OpenAI thinks it’s so good that it’s the same.) The low development costs are what caused Nvidia stocks to decline sharply and DeepSeek became the talk of the internet. I know you don’t care about the impacts on the financial markets, but...

Sometimes you just know where it’s going (or do you)….When crazy facts result in crazy decisions

Sometimes you just know where it’s going (or do you)….When crazy facts result in crazy decisions. In the world of NJ state court As a general matter, a published decision needs to have a three-judge panel at the appellate division and will generally give us some kind of legal test to be applied. Or it may modify an existing rule, but slightly. I read a lot of case law. I also do a lot...

Succession Planning 101: Basic Considerations

Most states have no mandatory rules for attorneys to create a There are a few states that have guidance on this issue. Most of them have recommendations or guides. There is a good guide from Colorado available online. Most of the ethics rules from across the county have the same basic guidance: You “may” designate an attorney to manage your practice. You “may” want to have a list of contacts and passwords. You “may”...

I'm NOT Billing Time?

Watch Now I hope the link to this song works. If not, google “I’m Billing Time” by The Bar and Grill Singers. The song speaks to the heart of every lawyer. Sometimes I would even send it to my clients when they would complain about legal fees. The reality is that most lawyers have a hard time capturing and recording their time. In fact, it is so common a problem that lawyers actually talk about...

What is an Appeal

In plain words for real people: What the heck is an appeal? If you have a court case you will initially file in what we call the “lower” court. Depending on what state or federal court, this may be called the district court, trial court, court of common pleas, etc. It is the court that first hears the case. Certain case can resolve by way of agreement between the plaintiff(s) and defendant(s). Other cases will...

Music Industry Terms for the Uncool

Do people say “cool” anymore? I’ve always been more of a cool beans person myself, but I was always in the minority. I have spent most of my career explaining complex legal terms in plain language. Now I spend time explaining everyday terms in the context of legal contracts, but still in even plainer language. I have compiled a list of terms that you may come across in music or entertainment contracts for music licenses,...

The Positive Impact on Women Demanding Work-Life Balance

Men and women are not the same. They do not face the same challenges in the workplace and they do not face the same discrimination. Where men and women are the same in the legal world is the abuse and mistreatment by the court system and peers in extending courtesies Recently, I had two experiences that highlighted the plain vanilla struggle between men and women in the workplace that persists. Fortunately, these experiences reinforced...

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