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JAMES S. BOLAN
BRECHER, WYNER,
SIMONS, FOX & BOLAN, LLP
100 Wells Avenue
Newton, MA 02459
jbolan@legalpro.com
(email)
www.legalpro.com (web
site)
James S.
Bolan ‑
Mr. Bolan is a partner with Brecher, Wyner, Simons, Fox & Bolan, LLP, an
“AV” rated firm with principal offices in Newton, and Cape
Cod. He represents lawyers and law firms in Board of
Bar Overseers and malpractice matters, partnership breakups, departures
and law firm litigation. He
provides counsel to local, national and transnational lawyers and law
firms on risk management, law firm audits, malpractice
prevention, and professional responsibility, practice and ethics
matters. He also represents
physicians in disciplinary matters and professional and non-professional
clients in civil litigation matters.
He frequently serves as an expert witness in legal malpractice and
other proceedings, including on the reasonableness of legal fees,
conflicts, issue relating to lawyering, the creation and termination of
the attorney client relationship and the standard of care.
Mr. Bolan
is "AV" rated in
Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. He has
been recognized as one of the top
100 Lawyers in Massachusetts, a Massachusetts Super Lawyer®
by Boston Magazine/Law and Politics Magazine and a New England Super Lawyer in
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
and 2010. Mr. Bolan is
also a top-rated “10”
by AVVO.
A graduate of Belmont Hill
School (1966), Trinity College (1970), and Boston College Law School
(1973), Mr. Bolan was admitted to the bar in Missouri
(1973-inactive) and Massachusetts
(1975). He started practice in Kansas City in 1973 as a legal services
lawyer. From 1978 to 1983, he was an Assistant Bar Counsel with the
Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers. From 1983 to 1991, he was with
Chaplin & Milstein as an associate and then as a partner. He started the firm of Bolan &
Graeber, PC in 1991, which then became Bolan,
Frank & Graeber, PC
in 1992. He joined the
present firm in January 1999 where he is the head of the Litigation
Department.
Mr. Bolan has frequently served as an editor,
lecturer and author and participated in seminars and programs for
Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc., the Massachusetts Bar
Association, the Boston Bar Association, and the Association of
Professional Responsibility Lawyers in disciplinary, professional
liability and litigation matters.
He is the author and editor of The New Rules of
Professional Conduct: The
Impact on Ethical Practice in Massachusetts (MCLE 1998), co‑editor
with Justice Kenneth Lawrence and co-author of Ethical Lawyering in
Massachusetts (MCLE 1992, 1995, 2000, 2007) and a contributing author
to the Massachusetts Attorney Conduct Manual (Lexis Nexis/Butterworths).
He has been the Chair (since the inception in
1993) of the biannual seminar sponsored jointly by MCLE and the Board of
Bar Overseers entitled, "How
to Make Money and Stay Out of Trouble". He was the Chair of the MCLE
seminar entitled, "Practicing
Before the Board of Bar Overseers" (1994). He is the author of an article
published in the December 1994 issue of the Massachusetts Bar Journal
entitled "Representing a
Respondent Before the Board of Bar Overseers". He is also the author of an
article in the May/June 1994 issue of the Boston Bar Journal
entitled, "Practice Before the
Board of Registration in Medicine".
He was an author and panel member of the MCLE
seminar entitled "Handling the
Non-Medical Professional Malpractice Case" (1989) and panel
member of the seminar entitled "Dealing
with the S.O.B. Litigator..." (1990). He has been a panel chair and
member of a number of seminars conducted by MCLE and the Massachusetts
Bar Association, including a panel member of the 1995 through 1998 (and
Chair of the 1996 and 1997) MBA Annual Meeting Programs on Legal
Malpractice. He is a Fellow
of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, former chair of the Attorneys and
Accountants Liability sub‑committee of the Business Litigation
Committee; former member of the Boston Bar Association's Professionalism
and Bench and Bar Committees and former member of the Massachusetts Bar
Association's Ethics Committee (1992 - 1996).
He is a founding member (1990) of the national
Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL), was elected as
a Director for a three-year term (1996 - 1998), Treasurer (1998 –
1999), Secretary (1999 – 2000), President-Elect (2000 - 2001) and
President (2001 – 2002).
He has been a panel member and chair of numerous seminars
presented at APRL meetings, including the following:
·
Misdelivered
Documents: Fair Game for Adverse Counsel? by James P. Ulwick and
James S. Bolan
·
To Preclude or Not to Preclude: Should a Lawyer
Have Two Bites at the Apple Before Being Thrown Out of the Garden? Or, what is
the appropriate use of fact or issue preclusion in disciplinary
proceedings? Sarah McShea and James S.
Bolan
·
The Rise of "Private Citizen" Discipline
and the Demise of DR 1-102(A)(6): A Mystery
in Two Parts. James
S. Bolan and Robert H. Davis, Jr., Panelists
·
Safeguarding Client Funds for Non-Clients: Who
Must the Lawyer Protect? David
P. Atkins, Moderator. Panelists: James S. Bolan, Steve Lee, and Elizabeth
A. Kohnen
·
Opinions
of Counsel: The Ways and Means. James S. Bolan and David Ross Rosenfeld
·
Conflicts of Interest and Fiduciary Duty. (Shanghai
Conference)
James S. Bolan, Richard
Jacobson and Professor Lu Zhi'an
·
Duties to the Courts, Other Persons, and the Legal
Profession. (Shanghai
Conference) Mark I. Harrison, James
S. Bolan and Zhu Hongchao
·
Fee and Profit Sharing with Non-Lawyers: The
Evolving Definition of the Independence
of Counsel; James S. Bolan, Chair, William Wernz and R. Gerald Markle
·
Cross-Boundary Advertising: Impossibility of
Performance?
Peter R. Jarvis and James S.
Bolan
·
The Hazards of
Multi-Jurisdictional Practice: Avoiding Disciplinary Sanctions, Fee Forfeitures,
and Legal Malpractice Claims. (National Risk Management Conference) William T. Barker, James S. Bolan, Anthony E. Davis, and James J.
Grogan
·
Managing the Lone Wolf and other
partner problems; James S. Bolan and Robert A. Creamer;
·
Conflicts and Other
Issues For Lawyers With Ancillary Insurance and
Securities Businesses: Bad Idea, Wave of the Multi-Disciplinary Future,
or Both?
James S. Bolan and Charles W. Kettlewell
·
When Is a License Not a License? Applying MJP Principles to Federal
Practice, James S. Bolan, William Barker and
Suzanne Westerheim
·
Technological Advances
in Ethics Research.Diane L. Karpman and James S. Bolan
·
Truth and Consequences:
Negotiation Ethics
James S. Bolan, Moderator; Richard Perlmutter, George R. Clark
·
Ethics of Judicial Elections
in the Context of Regulation, Free Speech, Impartiality and Independence:
Point and Counterpoint: James S. Bolan, Moderator,
Jeremy R. Feinberg, Laura L. Smith, Brian S. Faughnan, and Honorable Cristina Pereyra-Shuminer.
·
You Can Run, but You Can't
Hide: Epic Encounters/Elusive Ethics in Electronic Discovery: Mark L. Tuft, Cooper, White &
Cooper, LLP, San Francisco, CA (chair/moderator) James S. Bolan, Brecher, Wyner, Simons, Fox & Bolan LLP, Newton,
Massachusetts, Cynthia K. Courtney,
Day Pitney LLP, Hartford, CT and Honorable Andrew J. Peck, New York.
·
I See Your Face Before
Me: The Ethics, Practicalities, and Pitfalls of Electronic
Networking (a/k/a Marketing) and Virtual Lives; (chair/moderator) James S. Bolan, Brecher, Wyner, Simons, Fox
& Bolan LLP, Newton, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Clark Tarbert, Ethics Counsel, The Florida Bar and Brian S. Faughnan
Adams and Reese LLP Memphis, TN
He
was a panel member at the February 2000
ALI/ABA Program in "Legal Problems in Museum Administration-Attorney
Client Privilege for In-House Counsel" and a panel member at the
February 2000 MBA Seminar - "Mass. R. Pro. C. Rule 4.2 and Labor
Lawyers". He was a
panelist in May 2000 (on issues of conflicts of interest and duties to
third persons) at a Conference on Judicial and Legal Ethics in the Peoples Republic of China
at Fudan
University Law
School, Shanghai,
China under the
auspices of the United States Department of State and the Peoples Republic of China.
He has conducted seminars on ex parte
communications for the MBA in June 2000, June 2002 and MCLE in August
2002. He was co-chair of an
MBA Seminar in May 2003 on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, chair of Seminars on
Staying Professional in the Practice in June 2003, 2004 and 2007 and
participated in the inaugural and subsequent Annual Seminars for
“In-House Counsel” in 2003, 2004 and 2006 conferences before
the Massachusetts Bar Association on the subjects of the attorney-client
privilege, confidentiality rules and ex parte communications (2003 and
2004) and the erosion of the attorney-client privilege (2006). He has
also participated in several panels for the MBA on the new IOLTA rules in
Massachusetts
in December 2003.
He provided ethics commentary for MCLE’s
inaugural Health Law Manual
(2004) and authored an article in November 2004 in the Boston Bar Journal
on extrication from an attorney-client relationship.
In addition to chairing the first MCLE panel on
the Ethics of Negotiation held
in May 2005, he was a speaker on ethics issues at the Real Estate Bar
Association for Massachusetts Spring Seminar in May 2005, he spoke on the
Ethics of Negotiation with
Prof. Richard Perlmutter in an MCLE/Westlaw
Webcast in November 2005, and chaired an APRL panel in February 2006
entitled Truth or Consequences:
Negotiation Ethics.
He presented two seminars at the MBA Annual
meeting in March 2006 on ethics and malpractice. He chaired the first MCLE ethics
panel on Avoiding Attorney Liability in Business Practice in August 2006. He recently participated in
a panel presentation on Advertising and Solicitation at a meeting before
the Legal Marketing Association of New England. He conducted a seminar for
the Boston Bar Association in March 2008 on the intersections of the bar
discipline process and professional liability actions and spoke at the
MCLE Professional Liability Seminar (on the same topic) and, as well, at
the Real Estate Bar Association Spring Conference in May 2008 (on
multiple client representations).
In 2008, he presented a lecture at Boston University Law School on
Legal Malpractice. In 2009 and 2010, he presented
seminars before the Boston Bar Association, APRL Annual Conference, the
MBA Annual Conference and the Massachusetts Business Lawyers Network on Transcendental Lawyering - Ethics,
Cyberspace and Social Networking and advertising. He has also presented several
LOMAP (Law Office Management Assistance Project) webcasts, including one
on Legal Advertising (2011).
He has recently participated in the Suffolk Law
School Advanced Legal Studies seminar in October 2010 on Avoiding
Pitfalls in Starting and Running a Law Practice.
He was a member of the
Supreme Judicial Court's Advisory Committee on Clerks of Courts from 1997
- 2010 and was a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Ad
Hoc Committee on Proposed Revisions to the Massachusetts Rules of
Professional Conduct. He is a
former Instructor of Law at Boston
University Law School
and New England School of Law.
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