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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 a principal office in Newton,
Massachusetts. 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 defense and prevention, and professional
responsibility, practice and ethics matters. He also represents physicians and
other professionals 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 “Top Attorney” in
Massachusetts and New England, a Massachusetts Super Lawyer® by Boston Magazine/Law and
Politics Magazine, a New England
Super Lawyer in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,
2010, 2011 and 2012, a top-rated “10”
and “Superb” by AVVO and one of the Best
Lawyers of America, 2012-13.
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
- Immigration Law and Ethics: James S.
Bolan, Brecher, Wyner, Simons, Fox & Bolan, LLP, Newton,
Massachusetts, Moderator, Douglas Hauer, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky
and Popeo, P.C. Boston, Jennifer Barnes, Executive Office for Immigration Review,
Office of the, General Counsel, Washington, D.C., Rachel McCarthy,
Disciplinary Counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,
Burlington, Vt., and David Ross Rosenfeld, Alexandria, VA.
- Conflicts and Choice of Law: International Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. James S. Bolan, Brecher,
Wyner, Simons, Fox & Bolan, LLP, Moderator; Professor Bruce
Green Fordham University School of Law; William Frievogel,
James Ham, Pansky, Markle,
Ham, LLP.
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 participated in the Suffolk Law School Advanced
Legal Studies seminar in October 2010 on Avoiding Pitfalls in Starting
and Running a Law Practice, which presentation was reprised in January
2012. And, he presented
a training seminar of the Licensed Private Detectives or Investigators of
Massachusetts on the use and misuse of social media; privacy, data
privacy and conflicts of interest.
He was recently on a panel at the ABA/Center for
Professional Responsibility Conference in May 2012 on “Old Rules, New Tools: The Challenge Of Social
Media For Bar Associations And Lawyers”.
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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