Fires in Los Angeles. Floods in Texas. Fear of war between nuclear superpowers abroad. Battles waged between political factions at home. A new American pope. The emergence of sycophantic AI.
When we think back on 2025, it’s easy to get swept away by its rapid pace and overwh elmed by the seismic -shifts occurring beneath our cultural, economic, political, and technological feat. In short, it’s been a wild year full of excitement and, sometimes, dread at what’s to come.
At NWSidebar, we spent a lot of time diving into the new. We covered new ethics advisory opinions, new precedential court cases, and new policies and programs at the WSBA. Read on to see the blogs that you, the readers, read the most on NWSidebar in 2025.
10. The Trouble with Rock Bottom and Why I Really Stopped Drinking
Is rock bottom good or bad? It’s a deceptively simple question with answers that vary depending on whom you ask. For some, rock bottom is the push they need to make healthy changes in their life. For others, it’s not as clearcut. The author of this article, submitted by a client of A Positive Alternative treatment center, falls closer to the latter category.
“Though I had a specific turning point with my drinking, the concept of rock bottom, with all its societal depictions, does not accurately reflect my experience and might even create unhelpful standards in the world.”
9. Seller Financing: An Alternative Land Contract Worth Considering
Many attorneys may recall seller financing from property law classes, write Mark Fucile and James Hanger III. Even so, they might not grasp how it’s applied in the real world. In this article, the two attorneys discuss the benefits of seller financing, the way such deals are implemented, and the potential risks involved.
“In many ways, seller financing is an exercise in trust, as anything can happen to a buyer or seller’s financial, marital, or life circumstances throughout the financing term.”
8. New WSBA Ethics Advisory Opinion on Reporting Client Data
Questions concerning privacy in today’s world are abundant and complex. For legal professions, it’s not just a personal quagmire but a necessity to keep confidential their clients’ private information. But that’s easier said than done.
“The opinion recognizes that there is a growing consensus that even anonymized data can now be combined with publicly or otherwise available databases to ‘reidentify’ anonymized individuals,” writes WSBA Professional Responsibility Counsel Sandra Schilling in this article discussing the new Advisory Opinion 202402, regarding reporting client data to legal aid service funders.
7. Federal Court Addresses Standing to Bring Disqualification Motion under Former Client Conflict Rule
In this article, our resident ethics expert, Mark Fucile, gives an overview of the unpublished opinion in Thompson v. Seattle Public Schools, which came before the federal district court in Seattle.
In that case, the court “highlighted a key procedural requirement for most disqualification motions based on asserted former client conflicts: The party bringing the motion must show that they were, in fact, a former client of the lawyer or law firm targeted.”
6. Alaska Adopts ‘Continuous Representation’ Rule for Measuring Limitation Period in Legal Malpractice
The case of Sheldon-Lee v. Birch Horton Bittner, Inc., Fucile writes, “involved a claim that the defendant lawyers had not adequately represented the plaintiff at a mediation. Litigation in the underlying matter followed the mediation and the law firm continued to represent the plaintiff in various aspects of the case involved.”
In this article, Fucile explains how the Alaska Supreme Court’s recent adoption of the “continuous representation” rule for gauging when the statute of limitation begins to run on legal malpractice claims.
5. The Legal Profession Needs Better Leaders — Not More Managers
You’ve have had crappy bosses—you might have one right now. You’ve also had amazing bosses—hopefully you have one of those right now. In either case, at the end of the day the difference between a good boss and a bad one isn’t about micro-management and other minutia—it’s about leadership.
This idea comes from WSBA Practice Management Advisor Margeaux Green, who in this article highlights the qualities that make a manager a truly great leader.
“The legal profession is full of smart, capable managers, but what it’s often missing is leadership,” Green writes. “As hybrid work, burnout, and shifting expectations reshape the workplace, firms don’t need more task delegation—they need trust-building, vision-setting, and intentional guidance.”
4. Idaho Codifies ‘Entire File’ Approach When Withdrawing
“Under ABA Model Rule 1.16(d), when a lawyer withdraws, the lawyer is to ‘surrender … papers and property to which the client is entitled,” Fucile writes in this article. However, the problem is that “[n]either the ABA Model Rule nor most state counterparts … include a definition of what constitutes ‘papers and property’ in this context.”
Fucile takes a look at the Idaho State Bar Association new RPC 1.16A, which codified the “entire file” approach.
3. The Power of Active Listening for Lawyers
In Fight Club, of all places, there is a lesson in human empathy. In an exchange between the narrator and Marla Singer, they share that it’s only when you’re dying that people “really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.”
Likewise, lawyers express themselves for a living, whether in speech or writing. Listening, on the other hand, is a muscle that is usually less frequently exercised.
In this article, Paul Luvera, retired founder of the Luvera Law Firm, shares his own thoughts and the thoughts of others on the need for active listening in life, but especially for lawyers.
“Lawyers are people who often don’t fully listen to clients and others—even though active listening is supposed to be an essential part of their professional skills,” Luvera writes.
2. Oregon Issues Ethics Opinion on AI in Law Practice
What’s perhaps most surprising about NWSidebar in 2025 is that, despite accounting for upwards of 40 percent of U.S. economic growth and infiltrating all aspects of modern live, AI was not the sole focus of the WSBA’s blog in 2025.
Here, Fucile discusses the emerging rules on AI and the law in Oregon, specifically focusing on OSB Formal Opinion 2005-205 (2025), which “surveys the issues surrounding AI tools in law practice generally and is similar in scope and content to the comprehensive opinion the ABA issued on this topic last summer.”
“Both the Oregon and ABA opinions implicitly acknowledge that they are offering current guidance in a very rapidly evolving area and that their analysis is based largely on the experience gained through integrating earlier waves of technological change into law practice,” writes Fucile. “As such, neither bills itself as the ‘last word’ on this changing topic. For the ‘here and now,’ however, they both offer prudent practical advice to lawyers incorporating AI into their practices.”
1. Prosecutors in Washington and Beyond Are Raising Alarms About Hiring and Retention Problems
In 2024, the WSBA, along with bar associations across the country, was intensely focused on the crisis in public defense as offices struggled to find new public defenders and hemorrhaged expertise as older members retired without replacement. But it’s not just public defenders; those on the other side of the aisle, it turns out, are facing many of the same problems.
“With many prosecutors saying they are underpaid and overworked, offices from Houston to Los Angeles to Yakima are experiencing the consequences of a mounting problem,” writes WSBA Communications Specialist Colin Rigley. “People just don’t seem to want the job anymore.”
In this article, Rigley takes a look at the landscape of prosecutorial hiring retention and why “‘It is no secret that effective recruitment and retention are dilemmas prosecutors’ offices are facing nationwide.’”
