Add Your Two Cents: The Ethics Of Serving Clients Who Use Coins and Digital Assets

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An ethics inquiry regarding Digital Assets and Blockchain Businesses is currently being circulated for comment. Click here to read the inquiry: Coins and Digital Assets Ethics Request to NC Bar (June 2018). If you would like to provide a comment, please follow up directly with the State Bar as indicated below. The Ethics Committee is tentatively scheduled to consider this inquiry at its next quarterly meeting in July 2018.

Inquiry:
How can law firms ethically service clients who are using Coins and other Digital Assets?

Deadline:
July 12, 2018.  Items received after this date will still be included in the materials that go in front of the Ethics Committee, but I urge you to meet the deadline to increase the chances that the committee members will have a chance to review it in advance of their meeting.

Comments/Responses:
Should be directed in writing to Alice Neece Mine at the N.C. State Bar and may be submitted via email ([email protected] or [email protected]), facsimile (919-821-9168), or regular mail (P.O. Box 25908, Raleigh, NC 27611-5908).

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Sustainers Give More Because They Understand the NCBA’s True Value

By Brandon Robinson

Each year, the NCBA recognizes Sustainers, members who voluntarily pay twice the amount of their requisite membership dues. These funds support the NCBA’s mission of public service and strengthen the community of lawyers and jurists who are its core supporters.

Sustainers have been around since at least 1994. Until now, it has been a small group compared to the entire membership.  Each July, when NCBA members receive their renewal notices, they have the option of becoming a Sustainer by checking the appropriate box and paying twice the normal amount of the renewal invoice.

 

As we prepare for the 2018-19 bar year, I encourage all of my colleagues to strongly consider supporting the NCBA at the Sustainer level. Click here to renew your membership and become a Sustainer.

Being a sustainer means a lot to me because it helps the NCBA plan more strategically for the long term. Investing in the largest voluntary community of lawyers and jurists in North Carolina gives me much satisfaction.  ‘Seeking liberty and justice’ is the noblest calling a lawyer or jurist can pursue, but that ideal is not self-executing.  Being a Sustainer is just one small way in which I try to bridge the gap between ideal and reality.

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White House ‘Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices’: Large Aspirations, Little Detail

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By Stephanie Trunk and Erin Atkins

This article first appeared on the Arent Fox LLP Health Care Counsel blog. 

Following delays and much build up, the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have released their plan to address rising pharmaceutical prices and out-of-pocket costs directly impacting patients.  The plan is known as the “American Patients First” program, as outlined in “The Trump Administration Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs” (the Blueprint).   As part of this, HHS has published a formal request for information (RFI) seeking public comment on the questions and issues raised in Section V of the Blueprint (summarized below).  Comments are due to HHS on or before July 16, 2018.  We encourage all interested stakeholders to utilize this opportunity to submit feedback to the agency.

One initial impression of the Blueprint is that many of the proposed solutions are not defined in great detail and will take time and agency (and in some cases Congressional) action in order to implement.  In addition, many of the solutions were previously articulated in President Trump’s 2019 budget, and do not reflect novel policy.  Additionally, many of the issues raised in the Blueprint are familiar to those actively engaged in or following the drug industry, but will require active engagement between HHS and the industry to refine and address.

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