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Disciplinary Regulation Of Prosecutorial Discretion: What Would A Rule Look Like?, Samuel J. Levine Jul 2019

Disciplinary Regulation Of Prosecutorial Discretion: What Would A Rule Look Like?, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

This Essay is the third part of a larger project examining the potential role of professional discipline in the regulation and supervision of prosecutors’ charging decisions. The first two parts of the project argued that courts have both the authority and the ability to exercise effective disciplinary review of charging decisions through the adoption of ethics rules and their enforcement in the disciplinary process. This Essay takes the next step in the project, considering the nature of rules that courts might adopt, by exploring potential rules targeting two improprieties: arbitrary and capricious charging decisions, and discriminatory charging decisions.


Advising Clients After Critical Legal Studies And The Torture Memos, Milan Markovic Oct 2018

Advising Clients After Critical Legal Studies And The Torture Memos, Milan Markovic

Milan Markovic

No abstract provided.


The Negotiator-As-Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow Jun 2016

The Negotiator-As-Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Trevor C. W. Farrow

This article is about lawyers as negotiators, and in particular, it is about identifying and understanding the influential and potentially competing interests that are - or at least should be - in the minds of lawyers (and potentially other third party representatives) during the overall negotiation process. While there continues to be an increasing amount of literature on the mechanics and strategies of negotiation, the underlying interests that are typically at stake in representative negotiations from the perspective of representatives - particularly negotiations involving lawyers - have not been adequately studied. And until all interests are identified and placed squarely …


When Bad Guys Are Wearing White Hats, Catherine A. Rogers Apr 2016

When Bad Guys Are Wearing White Hats, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Allegations of ethical misconduct by lawyers have all but completely overshadowed the substantive claims in the Chevron case. While both sides have been accused of flagrant wrongdoing, the charges against plaintiffs’ counsel appear to have captured more headlines and garnered more attention. The primary reason why the focus seems lopsided is that plaintiffs’ counsel were presumed to be the ones wearing white hats in this epic drama. This essay postulates that this seeming irony is not simply an example of personal ethical lapse, but in part tied to larger reasons why ethical violations are an occupational hazard for plaintiffs’ counsel …


Lawyers Without Borders, Catherine A. Rogers Apr 2016

Lawyers Without Borders, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Professional regulation of attorneys is still attempting to catch up with the burgeoning international legal profession, which until recently has been wholly unregulated. The primary effort has been through revisions to Model Rule 8.5 to extend the reach of the Rule to international cases and professional activities in foreign countries. Because Rule 8.5 was drafted for domestic multi-jurisdiction practice, however, it is based on assumptions about territoriality and the historical relationship between the jurisdiction of tribunals and the licensing of attorneys that are simply inapposite in international settings. As a result, applying Rule 8.5 to international tribunals and international advocacy …


Fit And Function In Legal Ethics: Developing A Code Of Conduct For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers Apr 2016

Fit And Function In Legal Ethics: Developing A Code Of Conduct For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

In this Article, I develop a methodology for prescribing the normative content of a code of ethics for international arbitration, and in a forthcoming companion article, I propose integrated mechanisms for making those norms both binding and enforceable. In making these proposals, I reject the classical conception of legal ethics as a purely deontological product derived from first principles. I argue, instead, that ethics derive from the interrelational functional role of advocates in an adjudicatory system, and that ethical regulation must correlate with the structural operations of the system. The fit between ethics and function, I will demonstrate, not only …


Context And Institutional Structure In Attorney Regulation: Constructing An Enforcement Regime For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers Apr 2016

Context And Institutional Structure In Attorney Regulation: Constructing An Enforcement Regime For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

The question that looms large over the future of international arbitration is: How much should states yield to the international arbitration system? This Article attempts to answer the question as it applies to the specific context of regulating attorney conduct.


The Law And The “Spirit Of The Law” In Legal Ethics, Samuel J. Levine Nov 2015

The Law And The “Spirit Of The Law” In Legal Ethics, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

This article aims to explore the notion of the lawyer’s ethical responsibility to go “beyond” the letter of the law and to comply with the “spirit” or “purpose” of the law. The article suggests that, notwithstanding its promotion of admirable principles and goals, a spirit of the law model may prove inconsistent with basic legal and ethical obligations of lawyers. The lawyer’s duties as fiduciary, as agent, and as zealous advocate, responsible for representing the best interests of the client, preclude the lawyer from focusing on the spirit and purpose of the law rather than on the aims of the …


Systematically Thinking About Law Firm Ethics: Conference On The Ethical Infrastructure And Culture Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney Jul 2015

Systematically Thinking About Law Firm Ethics: Conference On The Ethical Infrastructure And Culture Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney

Susan S. Fortney

To advance the discourse related to law firm ethics and the impact of formal controls and informal influences on lawyer conduct, we convened on April 5, 2013 the Conference on the Ethical Infrastructure and Culture of Law Firms ("Conference" or "Symposium"). The Conference, conducted under the auspices of the Hofstra Law Review and the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University's Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics, was funded in part by the Abraham J. Gross '78 Conference and Lecture Fund at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. Experts who have studied issues …


The Role Of Ethics Audits In Improving Management Systems And Practices: An Empirical Examination Of Management-Based Regulation Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney Jul 2015

The Role Of Ethics Audits In Improving Management Systems And Practices: An Empirical Examination Of Management-Based Regulation Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney

Susan S. Fortney

For decades, legal malpractice experts have urged lawyers to implement risk management measures. To assist law firms in doing so, legal malpractice insurers have provided audit services and self-audit materials. Under the Australian regulatory regime, incorporated legal practices are required to complete a self-assessment process and to report on the firm's compliance with ten objectives of sound law practice. Using management-based principles, this Article discusses steps to take to encourage ethics audits "to merge good ethics and good business" in the U.S.


Preventing Legal Malpractice And Disciplinary Complaints: Ethics Audits As A Risk-Management Tool, Susan Saab Fortney Jul 2015

Preventing Legal Malpractice And Disciplinary Complaints: Ethics Audits As A Risk-Management Tool, Susan Saab Fortney

Susan S. Fortney

This column examines the value of firm lawyers conducting and supporting ethics audits as an integral feature of a comprehensive risk-management program. For decades, legal malpractice experts have urged lawyers to implement systems, policies, and procedures related to the delivery of legal services. Once a firm adopts systems, policies, and procedures, a meaningful risk-management system requires a periodic examination to monitor lawyers’ compliance. Rather than waiting for a professional liability insurer to recommend or require such a systematic examination, proactive firm leaders and lawyers should seriously consider devoting time and resources to periodic ethics audits.


Professional Responsibility And Liability Issues Related To Limited Liability Law Partnerships, Susan Saab Fortney Jul 2015

Professional Responsibility And Liability Issues Related To Limited Liability Law Partnerships, Susan Saab Fortney

Susan S. Fortney

This article surveys the professional responsibility and liability issues related to attorneys practicing in limited liability law firms. Part I of this article provides background information regarding the development of the limited liability partnership (LLP) and its popularity among legal professionals. Part II tackles the 1996 ethics opinion on LLPs rendered by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. This article criticizes the ABA opinion by examining the conclusions and reasoning articulated in the opinion, indentifying disciplinary rules that the opinion did not address, and considering the possible effects of the opinion. Part III focuses on …


Medium-Specific Regulation Of Attorney Advertising: A Critique, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Tera Jckowski Peterson Dec 2014

Medium-Specific Regulation Of Attorney Advertising: A Critique, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Tera Jckowski Peterson

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court added a "licensing" scheme for attorney advertising on television or radio to its existing panoply of attorney advertising regulations. The new rule imposes a prior restraint on all radio and television ads by Florida attorneys: every ad must run the gauntlet of the Bar's censors prior to airing, and the ad may not air unless its content meets with the approval of the censors. Not content with its foray into regulating the broadcast medium, the Florida Supreme Court is now poised to add a rule that will regulate attorney speech on the Internet much …


Relationships, The Rules Of Professional Conduct And Land Use: Ethical Quagmires For Land Use Attorneys, Patricia E. Salkin May 2013

Relationships, The Rules Of Professional Conduct And Land Use: Ethical Quagmires For Land Use Attorneys, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

This article begins to fill the void by introducing the application of the various Rules of Professional Conduct, as adopted by the specific opining jurisdiction, through a review of the relevant reported opinions of the various committees and sometimes courts, in the land use context. Part I discusses the challenges that arise for lawyers vis-à-vis their clients in the land use context. This is followed by a discussion in Part II of the ethics and professionalism issues that confront lawyers who serve on local boards.


Let's Put Ourselves Out Of Business: On Respect, Responsibility, And Dialogue In Dispute Resolution, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

Let's Put Ourselves Out Of Business: On Respect, Responsibility, And Dialogue In Dispute Resolution, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

This Essay works in two steps. I want to daydream with you about the future, or what I hope will someday be the future, of our dispute resolution movement. I want to then use these imaginings to reflect upon where we are today. I want to suggest something that may at first seem odd: Our ultimate goal should be to put ourselves, or virtually put ourselves, out of business. Eventually, I hope the time will come when we live in a society where the expert services of dispute resolution professionals, including not only lawyers and judges but also mediators and …


The Culture Of Legal Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

The Culture Of Legal Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

The goals of this essay are twofold. The first is to examine critically the practice of lawyers assisting clients in denying harms they commit and suggest some ways of changing that practice. Lawyers commonly presume that their clients' interests are best served by denial. Yet such a presumption is not warranted. Given the moral, psychological, relational, and sometimes even economic risks of denial to the injurer, lawyers should consider discussing responsibility taking more often with clients. The second is to explore several structural or systemic factors that may reinforce the practice of denial seen day in and day out within …


When People Are The Means: Negotiating With Respect, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

When People Are The Means: Negotiating With Respect, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

Most scholarship on negotiation ethics has focused on the topics of deception and disclosure. In this Article, I argue for considering a related, but distinct, ethical domain within negotiation ethics. That domain is the ethics of orientation. In contrast to most forms of human interaction, a clear purpose of negotiation is to get the other party to take an action on one's behalf, or at least to explore that possibility. This gives rise to a core ethical tension in negotiation that I call the object-subject tension: how does one reconcile the fact that the other party is a potential means …


The Immorality Of Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

The Immorality Of Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

This article is the first of a two-part series critically examining the role of lawyers in assisting clients in denying responsibility for harms they have caused. If a person injures another, the moral response is for the injurer actively to take responsibility for what he has done. In contrast, the common practice within our legal culture is for injurers to deny responsibility for harms they commit. The immoral, in other words, has become the legally normal. In this Article, Professor Cohen analyzes the moral foundations of responsibility-taking. He also explores the moral, psychological, and spiritual risks to injurers who knowingly …


Rehabilitating Lawyers: Perceptions Of Deviance And Its Cures In The Lawyer Reinstatement Process, Bruce A. Green, Jane Moriarty Dec 2011

Rehabilitating Lawyers: Perceptions Of Deviance And Its Cures In The Lawyer Reinstatement Process, Bruce A. Green, Jane Moriarty

Jane Campbell Moriarty

State courts’ approach to lawyer admissions and discipline has not changed fundamentally in the past century. Courts still place faith in the idea that “moral character” is a stable trait that reliably predicts whether an individual will be honest in any given situation. Although research in neuroscience, cognitive science, psychiatry, research psychology, and behavioral economics (collectively “cognitive and social science”) has influenced prevailing concepts of personality and trustworthiness, courts to date have not considered whether they might change or refine their approach to “moral character” in light of scientific insights. This Article examines whether courts should reevaluate how they decide …


Rebellious Lawyering, Regnant Lawyering, And Street-Level Bureaucracy, Paul R. Tremblay Nov 2011

Rebellious Lawyering, Regnant Lawyering, And Street-Level Bureaucracy, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

This Article explores the professional responsibilities of progressive lawyers representing the poor and disadvantaged. The author argues that lawyers representing the poor are generally good, energetic lawyers committed to social justice and lessening the pain of poverty. Subsequently, the defects found in poverty lawyering are structural, institutional, political, economic, and ethical. Therefore, the author posits that the mission of teachers and practitioners should be to develop practice patterns and proposals that account for the street-level experiences of legal services lawyers on the front lines. By examining the notions of rebellious and regnant lawyering, the author seeks to illuminate how these …


Acting "A Very Moral Type Of God": Triage Among Poor Clients, Paul R. Tremblay Nov 2011

Acting "A Very Moral Type Of God": Triage Among Poor Clients, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

No abstract provided.


Professional Responsibility In An Uncertain Profession: Legal Ethics In China, Judith A. Mcmorrow Oct 2011

Professional Responsibility In An Uncertain Profession: Legal Ethics In China, Judith A. Mcmorrow

Judith A. McMorrow

The rapidly expanding Chinese legal profession provides an extraordinary opportunity for the U.S. legal profession to test U.S. assumptions about legal ethics. This essay examines challenges facing Chinese legal education and the Chinese legal profession as it develops norms of legal ethics. This essay examines this process from the law school and law student’s perspective about legal ethics, and then briefly explores the effort to create norms of attorney conduct from a top-down perspective. Both a bottom-up and top-down view show the tremendous challenges facing the emerging Chinese legal culture in building a coherent model of lawyering that can serve …


The Story Of Mr. G.: Reflections Upon The Questionability Competent Client, Mark Spiegel Oct 2011

The Story Of Mr. G.: Reflections Upon The Questionability Competent Client, Mark Spiegel

Mark Spiegel

No abstract provided.


Professionalism: The Deep Theory, Daniel R. Coquillette Oct 2011

Professionalism: The Deep Theory, Daniel R. Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

Can our personal ethics and our professional ethics be in opposition? Our professional identity as lawyers is at the center of our personal morality. The legal profession is in crisis because we have lost sight of the deep theory of professionalism. This article focuses on our ultimate motivation for obeying rules, concentrating on three common categories: goal-based, rights-based, and duty-based theories. By examining these theories, the article argues that lawyers must turn away from the modern trend of goal instrumentalism and refocus legal practice on its humanistic roots.


Commitment And Responsibility: Modeling And Teaching Professionalism Pervasively, Marjorie A. Silver Aug 2011

Commitment And Responsibility: Modeling And Teaching Professionalism Pervasively, Marjorie A. Silver

Marjorie A. Silver

No abstract provided.


Legal Malpractice, Professional Discipline, And Representation Of The Indigent Defendant, Richard Klein Jul 2011

Legal Malpractice, Professional Discipline, And Representation Of The Indigent Defendant, Richard Klein

Richard Daniel Klein

No abstract provided.


Exceptions, Lawrence Raful May 2011

Exceptions, Lawrence Raful

Lawrence Raful

No abstract provided.


Taking Ethical Discretion Seriously: Ethical Deliberation As Ethical Obligation, Samuel J. Levine Feb 2011

Taking Ethical Discretion Seriously: Ethical Deliberation As Ethical Obligation, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

This Article builds on and responds to the work of a number of leading ethics scholars who have offered alternatives to the prevailing model of legal ethics. Specifically, the Article proposes a "Deliberative Model," which posits that the lawyer's professional responsibility carries with it a duty on the individual lawyer to exercise discretion through consideration of the relevant ethical issues. Thus, the Article takes seriously the principle of ethical discretion, respecting the role of individual ethical decisionmaking but requiring that such decisionmaking be carried out through a justifiable process of ethical deliberation.


Stress, Burnout, Vicarious Trauma, And Other Emotional Realities In The Lawyer/Client Relationship (Symposium: Lawyering And Its Discontents: Reclaiming Meaning In The Practice Of Law), Marjorie A. Silver, Sanford Portnoy, Jean Koh Peters Jan 2011

Stress, Burnout, Vicarious Trauma, And Other Emotional Realities In The Lawyer/Client Relationship (Symposium: Lawyering And Its Discontents: Reclaiming Meaning In The Practice Of Law), Marjorie A. Silver, Sanford Portnoy, Jean Koh Peters

Marjorie A. Silver

No abstract provided.


The Moral Responsibility Of The Corporate Lawyer, Judith A. Mcmorrow, Luke M. Scheuer Dec 2009

The Moral Responsibility Of The Corporate Lawyer, Judith A. Mcmorrow, Luke M. Scheuer

Judith A. McMorrow

Lawyers traditionally claim that they are not morally accountable for the goals or activities of their clients that are within the bounds of the law. This essay explores this concept of non-accountability in the context of corporate transactional representation. We argue that corporate lawyers, whose practice is forward looking, undertaken on behalf of corporate clients who have legally impaired ability to engage in independent moral reasoning, and who function in a world of relatively minimal legal oversight (i.e. whose work is furthest from the model of the adversary system) cannot persuasively claim that they are not morally responsible for the …