731–737 of 737 posts
Summary: Media attention gathers. UW issues a response that the site was in violation of the rules. But in fact rules were updated to make that site a violation just now. UW has acknowledged the site was taken down and a commitment made to not pursue any similar project. UW has lifted the hold. He can graduate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The entity paying the lawyers isn’t making the rules here. This is professional ethics: the attorneys in question have a conflict of interest.
It’s subtler than conflict of interest. Anyone working for students while being paid for by the university (like some ombudsman) might think twice before going too hard after anything in the institution side that they work at, with people, etc. This isn’t to say it should be adversarial, just not endlessly borne back against the currents into being neutralized by bureaucracy and office politics. If it was independent…
Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No they can't have a conversation when they know of a non waivable conflict.
Surely they could refer the enquiry to the bar association or something in this jurisdiction. How would the lawyer even know, without conversation, that there was a conflict?
As for the latter, that's why i said "when they know of a non waivable conflict".
Emphasis being "know of".
Here, they know they have a conflict - they have a client, it's not this person, and they know their client will be adversarial to this person. They aren't even part of a law firm that represents multiple clients regularly or something like that where sometimes the conflicts might be waivable (often not, but still)
This is a very very easy case.
If they don't know they have a conflict, sure, they can have a conversation for the purposes of understanding if they have a conflict.
That's not this case though!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely they could refer the enquiry to the bar association or something in this jurisdiction. How would the lawyer even know, without conversation, that there was a conflict?
> Surely they could refer the enquiry to the bar association or something in this jurisdiction. They might but in many cases wouldn't even do that because they still wouldn't get paid for it. Doesn't matter, you don't need them for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s subtler than conflict of interest. Anyone working for students while being paid for by the university (like some ombudsman) might think twice before going too hard after anything in the institution side that they work at, with people, etc. This isn’t to say it should be adversarial, just not endlessly borne back against the currents into being neutralized by bureaucracy and office politics. If it was independent…
You describe why this is a nonwaivable conflict of interest.