Heightened ethics awareness among lawyers and more emphasis on continuing education may be helping to reduce misconduct complaints and discipline in bigger states even as the attorney population rises, some experts say.
While data doesn’t point to a single reason for multi-year declines in complaints and sanctions reported by several states tracked by Bloomberg Law, the falloff coincides with an uptick in legal industry changes and other efforts to better address discipline.
California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, and New Jersey were among those reporting continued declines in complaints and sanctions in their latest annual disciplinary reports. Data for New York, ...