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[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Are you thinking ethical as in a break of the Rules of Professional Conduct or ethical as in just a general bad thing to do?

If the former, what rule are you thinking of?

If the latter, there are a bunch of attorneys running around DC doing some very, very bad things these days, many of which may not run directly afoul of the Rules of Professional Conduct. I'm not sure getting academic concepts of attribution and citation into the Rules is my top priority. But, yeah, I wouldn't copy it word for word and wouldn't want one of my partners or associates to, either.

That having been said, I just sent a nasty letter to someone (a variation on a troll) making a claim against a client and it was based heavily on a brief filed in another case against the same company (with attribution, I was trying to rub in their face that I knew they were already on the hot seat for bad behavior), and I didn't have a lot of compunction about having us track another good argument pretty closely, though adding lots of detail on our own facts and trying to twist the knife a couple more times here and there.

If it's good I will paraphrase the shit out it. I'd be flattered if someone re-used my argument.