Digital Commons Network^™

The Science Of Legal Synthesis, Jennifer M. Cooper

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article applies scientific research to improve and systematize legal synthesis, a vital element of reasoning that spans legal analysis, legal education, and law practice. Despite its critical role in legal analysis, synthesis is poorly understood, hard to perform, and even harder to describe. Synthesis embodies a hidden curriculum that legal educators expect students to learn “by osmosis.” This lack of transparency frustrates both professor and student, rendering the skill difficult to teach, assess, and master.

This Article provides reliable methodologies to better understand how legal synthesis really works and how to actually perform it. Part I provides a …

The Mismeasure Of Success, Alissa Rubin Gomez

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Large law firms evolved to serve major corporations by offering them “lawyers who were white males comfortable with the business elite, with wives at home to free up work time . . . .” After decades of advancing these same lawyers, the result has been a widespread belief that the ideal big firm lawyer is one who is committed to professional life at all hours of the day and night, and whose personal life is either nonexistent or handled by someone else. Women at large law firms have been expected to act accordingly. That is, to act like men. …

Beyond Lawyer Assistance Programs: Applying The United States Marine Corps' Concepts And Principles Of Spiritual Fitness As A Means Towards Increasing The Health, Resiliency, And Well-Being Of Lawyers—While Restoring The Soul Of The Profession, David A. Daigle, Daniel V. Goff

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Lawyer Assistance Programs (“LAPs”) are recognized as an invaluable tool for increasing well-being by assisting lawyers to secure confidential treatment in order to overcome various addictions and mental health issues. The 2017 report by the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being underscores this notion by asserting that LAPs “play a pivotal role in lawyer wellbeing.” While this is true, the legal profession would do well to look beyond LAPs and broaden its discussion regarding wellness. In particular, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) should more robustly recognize and encourage spirituality as a means towards health, resiliency, and well-being, much like …

Why Don't We All Just Wear Robes?, Ruthann Robson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Lawyers and law professors select our professional outfits each day, often experiencing a mix of consternation and gratification. The dread springs from our failures: to know what constitutes the “right look;” to be able to achieve that “right look;” to anticipate what the day will bring; to have prepared by doing the laundry or other tasks. The joy resides in self-expression; we fashion ourselves as works of art, even within the constraints of professional attire.

It could have been different. We could have sacrificed the satisfaction of self-expression for the complacency of conformity; we could wear robes. Judges—at least …

How To Look Like A Lawyer, Ann Juliano

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Law schools often claim that they are teaching students “how to think like a lawyer.” What is less touted, however, is that students are learning how to look like a lawyer. They receive this message from multiple sources (faculty, alumni, peers, the career office) concerning a variety of situations: class, interviews, moot court, trial team, symposia and conferences. For law students who are first generation, these sources may be the only avenue (apart from the entertainment industry) of determining how to look like a lawyer. For law students who are transgender or gender non-binary, dress code advice dispensed along …

Model Dress Code: Promoting Genderless Attire Rules To Foster An Inclusive Legal Profession, Rebekah Hanley, Malcolm Macwilliamson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

I knew that my likelihood of being able to wear a dress to court was pretty slim. I wasn’t that naïve. At the same time, I resented the notion that at no time in my future legal career would I be able to acknowledge, honor, or share the full complexity of my identity—that, by choosing law, I was relinquishing the right to ever be fully myself in my professional career.

I came out as transgender at age eighteen. Shortly thereafter, I began to transition socially and medically. I quickly realized how much of my “self” I had been unable …

When Your Identity Is Inherently "Unprofessional": Navigating Rules Of Professional Appearance Rooted In Cisheteronormative Whiteness As Black Women And Gender Non-Conforming Professionals, Shannon Cumberbatch

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Several years ago, I attended my first large-scale career fair as a recruiter where I screened a mass of aspiring lawyers for staff attorney positions at my legal organization. During our brief break from marathon interviewing, my white colleagues shut down their tables to enjoy their downtime and as I prepared to do the same, I looked up to find a critical mass of Black women excitedly converging upon my interview station. Forming a half circle around my table, they began exclaiming how enamored they were by my appearance and how it countered much of the counseling they had …

A Rebuttal To Kinsler's And To Anderson And Muller's Studies On The Purported Relationship Between Bar Passage Rates And Attorney Discipline, William Wesley Patton

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Because of the escalating cost of legal education and the recent decline in bar passage rates among ABA approved law schools, some analysts have reasonably attempted to determine the social costs of legal education. Many have attempted to place the blame on segments of the legal education marketplace. The complicated relationships among the policies of providing more access to justice, increasing minority representation in the bar, and protecting the public from shoddy law practice have recently inflamed academic debate. In the rush for assessing blame, some analysts have published empirically flawed reports that have received a great deal of …

To The Head Of The Class? Quantifying The Relationship Between Participation In Undergraduate Mock Trial Programs And Student Performance In Law School, Teresa Nesbitt Cosby

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article seeks to answer the question of whether students who engage in undergraduate mock trial competitions gain a competitive advantage in law school. The Article will examine the pedagogy of experiential learning methods by analyzing how student performance in undergraduate school compares to how these same students perform in law school, and, importantly, whether these students are gainfully employed in a law-related career after law school. This is accomplished by conducting four interviews with Furman alumni who participated in the undergraduate mock trial program during their tenures, and a survey targeting law school students and recent graduates who …

Is Bar Exam Failure A Harbinger Of Professional Discipline?, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article’s theses are premised on two suppositions. First, the primary causes of attorney discipline are nondiligence and incompetence. Similarly, the primary causes of bar exam failure are “poor study habits, weak academic skill development, or low intellectual functioning . . . .” Thus, it is reasonable to assume that lawyers who fail the bar exam are more likely to be disciplined as attorneys. Second, there is statistical and anecdotal evidence linking the failure of entrance exams and subsequent professional discipline in other occupations. It is plausible, therefore, that such a link exists in the legal profession.

Epistemic Peerhood In The Law, R. George Wright

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

We thus have, at this point, a preliminary sense of the importance of some possible choices in deciding whose voices and participation should be taken seriously, as that of our epistemic peers, in deciding legal questions. This Article addresses these preliminary understandings in several legal contexts. We can do so most profitably on the basis of a better, fuller, and more specific understanding of the crucial idea of epistemic peerhood. It is thus the idea of epistemic peerhood itself that this Article addresses immediately below.

A Human Rights Code Of Conduct: Ambitious Moral Aspiration For A Public Interest Law Office Or Law Clinic, Lauren E. Bartlett

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Article argues that the lack of moral aspiration in legal ethics rules helps contribute to unhappy and unhealthy law students and lawyers, undermining the legal profession. Part II reviews the existing rules and standards that guide the ethical behavior of lawyers in the United States, arguing that all too often the binding rules focus on providing guide posts, signaling where behavior is unacceptable and disciplinary action is possible, instead of providing moral aspiration and options or next steps to describe what a lawyer should do to deal with an ethical dilemma.

Part III of this …

Faith, Pluralism, And The Practice Of Law, Robert K. Vischer

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Catholic Lawyers In An Age Of Secularism, The Honorable Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Changing Legal Landscape For Clergy, Arthur Gross Schaefer, Dan Van Bogaert

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Personal Values Within Our Profession, Gordon L. Gray

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Jacob's Blessing, Cooperative Grace, And Practicing Law With A Limp, John M.A. Dipippa

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Learning From The Unpleasant Truths Of Interfaith Conversation: William Stringfellow's Lessons For The Jewish Lawyer, Russell G. Pearce

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

A Challenge To Lawyers, Robert F. Drinan, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Introductory Note: Personal Values And The Character Of The Lawyer, Joseph A. Morris, C.M., Ph.D

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

On Encouraging Lawyers To Serve The Poor, John F. Castellano

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

A Long Overdue Rendezvous For American Legal Education, Daniel J. Morrissey

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

On Love, Technology, And Law, The Honorable Howard T. Markey

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Decline Of The American Republic: The Legal System As Prolegomenon, Peter J. Riga

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

On Choosing Clients And Careers: A Speculative Essay On The Problems Of Initial Choice, Joseph P. Tomain

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Maintaining Competency Among Lawyers: How Far Have We Come?, Jerri D. Gilbreath

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Lawyers In America: A Profession In Search Of Direction, Paul L. Savage, Richard A. Gabriel

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

A Message To New Attorneys, John J. Murphy

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Unified Bar: Will A Closed Shop Serve The Lawyer And The Public, Harold Brown

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of The Legal Aid Society To The Legal Profession, Robert P. Patterson, Jr.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.