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lished points of substantive law.'"12 However, a federal district court in Pennsylvania rebuked an attorney for verbatim copying at length from court opinions, including a one-page standard of review that "mirrors… with suspicious equivalence" one used by a federal district court judge.13 Similarly, the Sixth Circuit called it "completely unacceptable" when an attorney copied almost 20 pages verbatim, without attribution, from a district court opinion.14 The line seems to be the amount of language that has been copied; when large amounts of a brief or other pleading are copied from other pleadings or judicial opinions without attribution, most legal professions consider it unacceptable. • You're using language from non-pleadings written by attorneys from other firms.15 Thirty-seven years ago, the Kentucky Supreme Court wrote in a footnote to an opinion about a mortgage that "[l]egal instruments are widely plagiarized," and found "no impropriety in one lawyer's adopting another's work, thus becoming the 'drafter' in the sense that he accepts responsibility for it."16 However, while copying language from form books is expected, copying documents such as contracts, wills, and trusts from other law firms is not uniformly smiled upon.17 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Paper No. 185, 2007). Brian Craig, Legal Briefs: Helpful But Also Hazardous, 13 Persps: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 132 (Spring 2005). Richmond, supra note 2, at 245; Schroeder, supra note 3, at 68-69. E.g., Posner, supra note 1, at 20-23; Bast & Samuels, supra note 2, at 800; Catherine L. Fisk, Credit Where It's Due: The Law and Norms of Attribution, 95 Geo. L.J. 49, 96 (2006). Iowa Sup. Ct. Attorney Disciplinary Bd. v. Cannon, 789 N.W.2d 756, 759 (Iowa 2010); Strickland, supra note 2, at 925-29. The court in Cannon was particularly irked that the attorney charged his client more than $5000 for preparing the largely plagiarized brief. U.S. v. Sypher, No. 3:09-CR-00085, 2011 WL 579156, at *3 n.4 (W.D. Ky. 2011). The court also gently reminded the offending attorney "that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of legal authority in the United States District Courts." E.g., Craig, supra note 4; Richmond, supra note 2, at 245-46; Judith D. Fischer, The Role of Ethics in Legal Writing: The Forensic Embroiderer, The Minimalist Wizard, and Other Stories, Scribes J. of Legal Writing, 2003-2004, at 104. In addition to potential charges of plagiarism, an attorney who copies the work of other attorneys could be infringing on copyright, although the law on this issue is not clear. Craig, supra note 4; Scott Moise, Rocket Docket: The Joys and Perils of Online Court Documents, S.C. Law., May 2011, at 48; Bast & Samuels, supra note 2, at 805. E.g. Moise, supra note 9, at 47. Strickland, supra note 2, at 938-39 (citing N.C. State Bar, 2008 Formal Ethics Op. 14 (2009)). According to the Ethics Opinion, "[a]lthough consent and attribution are not required, if a lawyer uses, verbatim, excerpts from another's brief and the lawyer knows the identity of the author of the excerpt, it is the better, more professional practice, [sic] for the lawyer to include a citation to the source." 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Strickland, supra note 2, at 947. Venesevich v. Leonard, No. 1:07-CV-2118, 2008 WL 5340162, at *2 n.2 (M.D. Pa. 2008). U.S. v. Bowen, 194 F. App'x 393, 402 n.3 (6th Cir. 2006). Strickland, supra note 2, at 938. Fed. Intermediate Credit Bank of Louisville v. Ky. Bar Ass'n, 540 S.W.2d 14, 16 n.2 (Ky. 1976); Moise, supra note 9, at 47; Bast & Samuels, supra note 2, at 804. Strickland, supra note 2, at 938 n.128 (citing Terry LeClercq. Failure to Teach: Due Process and Law School Plagiarism, 49 J. Legal Educ. 236, 250 (1999)). Fischer, supra note 2, at 68. Diane Kraft is an assistant professor of Legal Research and Writing at the University of Kentucky College of Law. The best practice, then, is to proceed with caution when copying in legal writing. In Kentucky, it is probably acceptable to copy non-litigation documents from other sources, provided you have taken care to modify the documents to fit your clients' needs.18 On the other hand, when writing pleadings, do not copy large sections from other documents, and always cite your sources. Originality is not prized in legal writing, but professionalism certainly is. B&B; 2 3 Richard A. Posner, The Little Book of Plagiarism 15 (2007). E.g., Cooper J. Strickland, The Dark Side of Unattributed Copying and the Ethical Implications of Plagiarism in the Legal Profession, 90 N.C. L. Rev. 920, 937 (2012); Carol M. Bast & Linda B. Samuels, Plagiarism and Legal Scholarship in the Age of Information Sharing: The Need for Intellectual Honesty, 57 Cath. U. L. Rev. 777, 804 (2008); Douglas R. Richmond, Professional Responsibilities of Law Firm Associates, 45 Brandeis L.J. 199, 245 (2007); Judith D. Fischer, Avoiding Plagiarism in Legal Documents, Ky. Bench & Bar, May 2006, at 68. E.g., Strickland, supra note 2, at 937; Jeanne L. Schroeder, Copy Cats: Plagiarism and Precedent 58-61 (Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Jacob Burns Inst. for Advanced Legal Studies, Working 31 1 B&B; • 05.13