Digital Commons Network^™

Black Lives Matter And The Push For Colonial-Era Cultural Heritage Restitution, Kathryn Speckart

Catholic University Law Review

The influence of the Black Lives Matter movement extends into U.S. museums in the form of calls for “decolonization” of collections comprised of art and artifacts from Africa and other colonized areas. As a result, the accompanying legal and ethical questions surrounding these artifacts now figure prominently in the museum industry. This Comment analyzes why the current U.S. cultural heritage law framework does not accommodate colonial-era African artifacts. This is due to few of these artifacts being subject to legal claims under current laws, African artifacts not having protection as a special classification, and the lack of enforcement mechanisms in …

Conflicts Of Interest At An Organization’S Highest Authority: How The District Of Columbia’S Rules Of Professional Conduct Can Fail To Protect Private Organizations, Christopher Deubert

Catholic University Law Review

This Article examines how the District of Columbia’s incomplete incorporation of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct into its own Rules of Professional Conduct has created a scenario in which wrongdoing inside a private organization can flourish. In 2002, following the Enron scandal, the American Bar Association (ABA) revisited and revised its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The ABA nevertheless took a conservative route, rejecting rules long proposed by experts which would have permitted attorneys aware of corporate crimes, fraud, and other wrongdoing to report their concerns to individuals or entities outside the organization’s reporting structure. Additional scandals unfolded contemporaneous …

Swipe Right Into A Disciplinary Hearing: How The Use Of Dating Apps Could Earn An Attorney More Than A Bad First Date, Zachary S. Aman

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct seek to police the conduct of attorneys. Each jurisdiction adopts its own rules of professional conduct to apply to the attorneys licensed within it. Notably, the model rules prohibit any sexual relationship between the attorney and client unless that relationship precedes the attorney-client relationship. Traditionally, defining a "sexual relationship" was simple, particularly if the attorney and client engaged in sexual intercourse. The introduction of dating apps, however, has blurred the line.

This article outlines the inherent risks of attorneys using dating apps at a time when most newly-licensed attorneys make up the majority of …

Establishing The Legal Framework To Regulate Quantum Computing Technology, Kaya Derose

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The “Corporation Revolution” And The Professional Ethics Of Giving Advice On Executive Protection Issues, Sarah Helene Duggin, Shannon "A.J." Singleton, James D. Wing

Scholarly Articles

In today's law enforcement environment, business entities facing criminal investigations and possible indictment have little practical choice but to cooperate with authorities. Cooperation offers the opportunity to avoid a costly trial and attendant adverse reputational, financial, and morale impacts. Resolution of potential criminal charges, however, almost always requires entities to cooperate with law enforcement efforts to impose criminal liability on individual business executives.

While businesses and their executives once generally perceived their interests as closely aligned, the “Cooperation Revolution” of the last few decades has forced corporate boards and business executives to reassess their individual obligations and risks. In so …

The Attorney-Client Privilege And Former Employees, Douglas R. Richmond

Catholic University Law Review

Attorney-client relationships are infused with confidentiality, and the attorney-client privilege is critical to the protection of sensitive and important communications between clients and their lawyers. Organizational clients, like individuals, are entitled to assert the attorney-client privilege concerning communications that fall within its scope.

In the organizational context, a common problem is determining who among the entity’s employees speaks on its behalf, such that communications between the entity’s lawyers and those employees may be protected against discovery by the organization’s adversaries and other third parties. And, of course, as organizations experience the inevitable turnover in their workforces, another issue surfaces: when, …

Who Is The Client? Rethinking Professional Responsibility For Benefit Corporations, Joseph R. Pileri

Catholic University Law Review

A growing social enterprise movement has led companies to increasingly opt into the benefit corporation form, and those companies are hiring lawyers. Benefit corporations challenge the notion that corporate law’s primary focus is on furthering shareholder interests. While many have written about the benefit corporation with respect to corporate fiduciary law, this Article is the first to explore the form’s ethical implications for lawyers. Ethical obligations necessarily reflect substantive law governing client organizations; changes to the corporate form presented by benefit corporation legislation should reverberate in legal ethics. The legal profession, however, has not addressed how to lawyer to a …

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

The Connected State Of Things: A Lawyer’S Survival Guide In An Internet Of Things World, Antigone Peyton

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Talk Don’T Touch? Considerations For Children’S Attorneys On The Physical Touch Of Clients, Andrea L. Dennis

Catholic University Law Review

Forming a positive attorney-client relationship with a child is a complex process that involves many considerations. Although it offers guidance on effectively communicating and creating a safe environment, the legal system has neglected to form appropriate standards governing physical touch of juvenile clients. There are numerous benefits to physical touch of clients. However, a lack of guidance on the appropriate ways to use physical touch creates the risk negative effects will result from the touch. Drawing from the standards of other child-focused professions, this Article provides guidelines for attorneys contemplating using physical touch to develop a positive rapport with child …

A Good Rule, Poorly Written: How The Financial Crisis Highlighted The Inadequacy Of Iolta Rate Rules, Andrew Arthur

Catholic University Law Review

Interest on lawyer trust accounts (IOLTA) provide a substantial component of funding that is used to provide legal aid to needy individuals throughout the United States. However, IOLTA program revenues fluctuate with the deposit interest rates, which have remained near zero after the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis. The Comment examines IOLTA rate rules across the country, and the impact of reduces IOLTA revenues on legal aid programs. The Comment further asserts that IOLTA rate rules are not adequately designed to account for fluctuation in central bank interest rates, causing unanticipated problems for legal aid funding. Finally, the …

Shame, Angry Judges, And The Social Media Effect, Maxine D. Goodman

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Celebrating Clepr’S 40th Anniversary: The Early Development Of The Clinical Legal Education And Legal Ethics Instruction In U.S. Law Schools, J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy

Scholarly Articles

This article introduces the essays, articles, and remarks celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility (CLEPR). The Section on Professional Responsibility and Section on Clinical Legal Education of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) jointly sponsored a half-day program at the 2009 AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, in recognition of the fortieth anniversary of CLEPR and the one hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of the American Bar Association Canons of Professional Ethics, the ABA's first effort at establishing a private law of lawyering to govern its members. After …

Researching Legal Ethics, Stephen E. Young

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

First Do No Harm: Law Professor Misconduct Toward Law Students, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

A Double Standard For Lawyer Dishonesty: Billing Fraud Versus Misappropriation, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

In this Article, I examine the dishonest billing practices alleged to have occurred and the analysis of the dishonesty by the Hearing Committee and the court. I offer a critique of the investigation of the case, the findings of fact and the legal standards applied. I compare this billing fraud case to the leading case on misappropriation of client funds in the District of Columbia. I argue that the decision-makers (Hearing Committee, Board on Professional Responsibility, and court of appeals) have gone to great lengths to avoid addressing the very grave dishonesty that led to this disciplinary matter. I speculate …

Teaching Ethics In And Outside Of Law Schools: What Works And What Doesn’T, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No matter the setting or the audience, certain approaches are more likely than others to engage the students in learning the relevant law and exploring the array of dilemmas that lawyers encounter in practice. Some methods are more likely than others to help students to increase their ability to recognize ethical dilemmas and to understand the institutional dynamics and economic pressures that lead some lawyers to rationalize unethical conduct. On the other hand, some approaches to teaching ethics are almost certain to fail, to produce boredom, animosity, cynicism or alienation among participants. What follows is a short inventory of some …

A Legal Career For All Seasons: Remembering St. Thomas More’S Vocation, Veryl Victoria Miles

Scholarly Articles

The vast majority of the work taking place in most law schools is the preparation of law students for the practice of law; namely, to teach legal theory and doctrine, legal analysis, writing, and advocacy. In sum, the goal of most law schools is to teach the many different skills required in law practice and the professional rules of legal ethics. What appears to be lacking in the preparation of future lawyers are lessons on how to incorporate this vast amount of specialized learning and skill in ways that will be harmonious with the personal, moral, and ethical values that …

Greed Among American Lawyers, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Internal Corporate Investigations: Legal Ethics, Professionalism And The Employee Interview, Sarah Helene Duggin

Scholarly Articles

This article addresses key ethical issues pertaining to the conduct of employee interviews in the course of internal corporate investigations. The discussion focuses on business corporations, but it is equally applicable to other for-profit and not-for-profit organizations." Part II provides background information on developments in organizational criminal liability over the past two decades, the importance of the United States Sentencing Commission's Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, and the concomitant emergence of the internal investigation as an integral part of modern corporate legal practice. Part III examines law enforcement authorities' growing insistence on corporate "cooperation" as a prerequisite to participation in voluntary disclosure …

Legal Services Provision Through Non- Profit Multidisciplinary Practice – Encouraging Holistic Advocacy, While Protecting Ethical Interests, Stacy Brustin

Scholarly Articles

This Article examines the current debate on multidisciplinary practice (MDP) in the context of legal services provision in a non-profit setting and suggests ways for advocates and non-profit organizations to reap the benefits of MDP while avoiding the potential ethical pitfalls of such arrangements. Part I of the Article outlines the benefits of using a multidisciplinary model to address the legal needs of clients who are traditionally marginalized from the United States legal system. Part II explores the ethical debate surrounding multidisciplinary practice and analyzes whether the current rules of professional conduct prohibiting multidisciplinary practice apply to nonprofit organizations. Part …

Teaching Professional Responsibility In Legal Clinics Around The World, Leah Wortham

Scholarly Articles

At a March 1999 Colloquium on Clinical Legal Education,1 a group of about 20 people, including a number of law faculty already teaching or planning to teach legal clinics in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union , were asked, "What are the goals that you think are most important for a legal clinic?" The most common answers were teaching about ethics and improving the ethical standards of law practice in participants' respective countries through this focus in legal education.

Blue-Chip Bilking: Regulation Of Billing And Expense Fraud By Lawyers, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

This study of recent cases of billing and expense fraud confirms the views of David Wilkins, Ted Schneyer, and many other scholars that the disciplinary system performs only one of several needed regulatory functions. The cases demonstrate the need for public and private regulatory responses that not only receive and investigate complaints, but also provide education, prevention, proactive monitoring, and remediation. Lawyers who engage in billing and expense fraud should be fired, disbarred, prosecuted on criminal charges, sued for malpractice. If the public and private organizations that can attend to this problem take it seriously, the norms in the legal …

Professional And Ethical Issues In Legal Externships: Fostering Commitment To Public Service, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

In this Article, I explore the larger issue of professional choices presented to law student externs. Then I explore some of the particular ethical dilemmas that law students and their teachers encounter in externship programs.

Regulation Of Unethical Billing Practices: Progress And Prospects, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

During the last ten years billing fraud by lawyers has been recognized as a serious problem that undermines clients' trust of lawyers and the reputation of the profession as a whole. It used to be thought that lawyers who wanted to steal their clients' money would just take money out of the trust account. In recent years it has become clear that dishonest lawyers' methods of misappropriation are far more diverse than that.

The focus of this paper is on billing misconduct by lawyers who contract with their clients to bill by the hour. I will not talk about lawyers …

Fee-For-Service Clinical Teaching: Slipping Toward Commercialism, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

A Teacher’S Trouble: Risk, Responsibility And Rebellion, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

What follows is an edited transcript of a session at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 7, 1995. The meeting was a joint plenary session of the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility and the Section on Clinical Legal Education. The meeting was planned and the role plays were written by Professors Margaret Martin Barry and Lisa Lerman of The Catholic University of America and Professor Homer La Rue of Howard University.

The purpose of the program was to foster interaction among teachers of professional responsibility and clinical teachers about …

Gross Profits? Questions About Lawyer Billing Practices, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Teaching Professional Responsibility In Law School, Leah Wortham

Scholarly Articles

I was pleased to be asked to write about teaching professional responsibility in law school. Ten years and sixteen classes of professional responsibility have allowed me to form many views. The following is organized in a variation of the journalist's standard five questions (who, what, when, where, and how). I consider WHAT to teach in professional responsibility courses, WHO should teach them, WHEN to teach the subject, HOW to teach it, and WHY it is hard to do.

Public Service By Public Servants, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.