August Bar Bulletin 2017
By Marc Lampson
Public Services Attorney
When I first started practicing law, around the time of Washington’s last volcanic eruption, law firm partners sent new associates to the courthouse to get something signed at ex parte. It was low risk. No money exchanged hands. Not much could go wrong. It made the associates feel more like real lawyers, and they got to say a Latin phrase when their friends at the bar asked them what they did that day.
Nowadays, I suspect even seasoned partners worry about screwing something up at ex parte. I first sensed something fishy about five years ago...