Kansas information regarding regarding admission to the practice of law, experts, legal malpractice, legal ethics, and legal fee disputes.

Kansas has a reciprocal admission rule

Effective July 1, 2005, Kansas admits experienced attorneys to practice without examination when the attorney is licensed in a state that will admit Kansas attorneys to practice under the same conditions. - Kansas Reciprocal Admission Rule.

Kansas lawyer disciplined for 'rounding up' time entries

In re Myers, 127 P.3d 325 (Kan., 2006) held a lawyer guilty of professional misconduct when he "rounded up" his time entries on a client's matter, even though the lawyer claimed that he had rounded up by no more than fifteen minutes.  The lawyer testified in his disciplinary hearing as follows:

"Q: In reviewing these bills, all of the time entries are in full one hour increments except for an entry on March 1, 2000, for three and one-half hours. Was it your practice to bill in full one hour increments in this time frame?

A: Yes.

Q: So regardless of the amount of time that you spent on a matter, if you spent less than an hour on it, you still billed for an hour?

A: Well, if we spent three-fourths of an hour, I would bill for an hour, yes.

Q: What if you spent one-quarter of an hour?

A: I would not bill for an hour.

Q: What was the smallest time spent in this time frame that you would bill for a full hour?

A: I'd say three-fourths of an hour."

The Kansas Supreme Court reasoned that "[t]he fee that an attorney charges for legal services must be reasonable. . . [and] . . . it is unreasonable to bill in one-hour increments when one-hour of work is not performed."  The court found the lawyer violated Rule 1.5 of the Kansas Rules of Professional Conduct, which parallels the model rules 8 factors for a reasonable fee, which includes the time and labor required."   The language of the court has the effect of holding as a matter of law that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to "round up" a time entry, and thereby charge the client for more time than the lawyer actually devoted to the particular task (regardless of whether the dollar amount of the resulting charge is reasonable).