Difficult Client Scenarios: An Ethical Guide for Paralegals

Agenda / Content Covered

1. What Can You Do? When Clients...
   1:00 — 1:30, Peter Ostermiller
   1. Ask You for Legal Advice (UPL)
   2. Conceal Facts, Lie, or Make Questionable Representations
   3. Ask You to Do Something Illegal, Unethical, or Inappropriate
   4. Conflicting Duties: Reporting Wrongdoing vs. Preserving Confidentiality
2. Dealing With Common Client Problems
   1:30 — 2:00, Peter Ostermiller
   1. Applicable Guidance and Relevant Rules
   2. Clients Who Expect a Response at 2:00 A.M.
   3. Clients With Unreasonable Expectations
   4. Clients Who Think They Know It All
   5. Clients Who Don't Communicate
   6. Bearing Bad News With Professionalism and Poise
3. Working With Clients Who Have Disabilities or Cultural Differences
   2:15 — 2:45, Jan Berlage
4. Avoiding Billing Disputes: Top 10 Tips for Paralegals
   2:45 — 3:15, Jan Berlage

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Jan I Berlage is a partner with Gohn Hankey & Berlage LLP. His practice focuses on general business litigation, ranging from commercial disputes to bankruptcy to intellectual property. Mr. Berlage has extensive experience in trials, arbitrations, mediations, and administrative hearings, including arguments before the Maryland Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third and Fourth circuits. He has secured major jury verdicts and large settlements for both businesses and individuals as well as successfully defended against multimillion dollar claims in both state and federal court. Prior to private practice, Mr. Berlage served as law clerk to the Honorable E. Stephen Derby, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland. He has taught pretrial litigation practice at the University of Maryland School of Law, served on the Board of Governors for the Maryland State Bar Association, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Maryland State Action Committee. Mr. Berlage is a fellow of both the American and Maryland State bar foundations, presents regularly at CLE courses, and has been the chair of numerous committees at both the national and state level. He earned his B.A. degree, with honors, from Wesleyan University; his J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as executive editor of The Journal of Law & Politics; and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Peter L Ostermiller is a sole practitioner concentrating in legal ethics and professional responsibility matters. Mr. Ostermiller represents attorneys in disciplinary and reinstatement proceedings, judges in judicial ethics matters, and bar exam applicants. He has also represented parties in attorney’s fee dispute proceedings, attorneys in legal proceedings in which sanctions have been sought against the attorney, represented parties in attorney disqualification proceedings, and counseled lawyers and law firms in their respective rights, responsibilities and duties to other attorneys and their clients. He is a member of the Kentucky Bar Association, Louisville Bar Association and the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. Mr. Ostermiller served on the Kentucky Bar Association's Ethics 2000 Committee which proposed changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct to the KBA, which resulted in the July 2009 revisions to the Ethics Rules. He graduated with his B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Louisville.