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Georgetown University Law Center

Lawyers

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Book Review Of Jean Stefancic & Richard Delgado, How Lawyers Lose Their Way: A Profession Fails Its Creative Minds (2005), Milton C. Regan Jan 2005

Book Review Of Jean Stefancic & Richard Delgado, How Lawyers Lose Their Way: A Profession Fails Its Creative Minds (2005), Milton C. Regan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

"How Lawyers Lose Their Way" claims that lawyers' unease stems from a distinctive source: their excessive use of and exposure to "formalism" in their work. I think that they are on to something, but the analysis in this book is too underdeveloped to provide much insight into what it is. The authors' use of the term "formalism" risks being so inclusive that it loses explanatory power. In addition, their claim that overreliance on formalism is the chief culprit in lawyers' unhappiness is vulnerable to the charge that lawyers arc suffering the effect of trends in the workplace affecting a wide …


Taking Myths Seriously: An Essay For Lawyers, Donald C. Langevoort Jan 2000

Taking Myths Seriously: An Essay For Lawyers, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The specific idea I want to explore has to do with the motivational power of myths and illusions on a personal level. To take a mundane example, people are often told to "believe in themselves." The underlying idea seems to be that high self confidence is an important motivator, especially in competitive settings like school, sports, business and the professions. This is not the idle talk of family and friends; millions of dollars are spent each year by people and their employers on motivational books and programs that offer endless variations on this simple theme in an effort to bolster …


Hard Choices: Thoughts For New Lawyers, David C. Vladeck Jan 2000

Hard Choices: Thoughts For New Lawyers, David C. Vladeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Rarely do law schools challenge students to examine their assumptions about what being a lawyer really means. Seldom do law schools undertake a probing examination of the role that lawyers play in society and the choices that lawyers have to make in terms of how they spend their working lives. For example, how many of you have a clue about the basic facts of our profession? How many lawyers there are in the United States? What do they do? What percentage work for the government? For large law firms? For small firms? For legal services organizations? For public interest groups? …