Law Commons^™

Legal Ethics, Roy M. Sobelson

Mercer Law Review

The biggest news in Georgia legal ethics this year actually made it into the general press when the Georgia Supreme Court approved a bar committee opinion confirming that real estate closings remained the exclusive province of licensed Georgia lawyers. With the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and consumer advocates all weighing in with contrary opinions, the court held firm against the inevitable, continuing criticism and cries of protectionism. Combined with the current debates over both multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional practices, it looks like the profession will continue to engage in heated debate in Georgia, if not worldwide, well into the …

Professional Responsibility, James M. Mccauley

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ethics And Professional Responsibility—Contingency Fees—An Attorney's Right Of Recovery When Discharged From A Contingent Fee Contract In Arkansas. Salmon V. Atkinson, 355 Ark., 137 S.W.3d 383 (2003), Eric C. Freeby

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lisa Schechtman On Reproductive Health And Human Rights: Integrating Medicine, Ethics, And Law By Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens, And Mahmoud F. Fathalla. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 554 Pp., Lisa Schechtman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Reproductive Health and Human Rights: Integrating Medicine, Ethics, and Law by Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens, and Mahmoud F. Fathalla. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 554 pp.

An Ethos Of Lying, Paul Butler

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The "Corporate Watch Dogs" That Can't Bark: How The New Aba Ethics Rules Protect Corporate Fraud, Monroe H. Freedman

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Telling Stories And Keeping Secrets, Abbe Smith

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Broken Trust And Divided Loyalties: The Paradox Of Confidentiality In Corporate Representation, Laurie A. Morin

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Should a lawyer protect her client's confidences when she knows that client is about to perpetrate a fraud that will cause substantial financial harm to third parties? For decades, the response of the organized bar has been a resounding "yes." 1 Until August 2003, the American Bar Association's (ABA's) Model Rules of Professional Conduct (Model Rules) provided that a lawyer owes her client a duty of loyalty to preserve the client's confidences, even if that client is about to commit a criminal fraud.2 The recent wave of corporate scandals that led to record-breaking bankruptcies and investor losses prompted the ABA …

Understanding Lawyers' Ethics: Zealous Advocacy In A Time Of Uncertainty, Katherine S. Broderick

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Can or should a lawyer representing an alleged terrorist ethically allow the government to tape her conversations with her client as a prerequisite to the representation? Can a public defender live up to the promise of Gideon v. Wainright1 when he is carrying 100 serious felony cases? Should a lawyer who divulges a client confidence to bring down a corrupt judge be sanctioned? What ethical obligations obtain for the lawyer representing the CEO of a thriving start-up when the CEO admits that by over-reporting profits he believes that he has turned the company around? These questions, some of the toughest …

Prescription For Death?: Psychotic Capital Defendants And The Need For Medication, Joseph R. Dunn

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Riner V. Newbraugh: The Role Of Mediator Testimony In The Enforcement Of Mediated Agreements, Joshua S. Rogers

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Jurisdiction Of Justice: Two Conceptions Of Political Morality, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

My topic in this essay is a major fault line within normative theory. More precisely, it is a major fault line within that part of a normative theory that deals with the content of our moral obligations to others. When I refer to moral obligations here, I am referring to those acts that morality demands of us such that it permits force or its threat to be employed to secure those acts. Moral obligations as I use the term are thus candidates for legal enforcement. I argue that much of what is debated within liberal political/moral theory can be usefully …

Understanding New Hampshire’S Rule 4.2 As Applied To Corporate Litigants: An Explanation And Suggestions For Improvement, Heather Menezes

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Consider this scenario: an attorney represents a client in litigation against a corporation. The attorney gets a call from an employee of that corporation and the employee says, “Everything in your complaint is absolutely correct.” However excited the attorney is to speak with this person, the Rules of Professional Conduct constrain whom the attorney can talk to if a corporation is involved in the pending litigation. In New Hampshire, any attorney can quickly find that Rule 4.2 prohibits contact with a represented party.1 But is this corporate employee a represented party? Even after reading the comment to the rule …

The Higher Calling: Regulation Of Lawyers Post-Enron, Keith R. Fisher

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses some of the inadequacies in the current ethical regulation of the legal system and proposes a new approach to crafting and contextualizing rules of legal ethics. The proliferation of specialties and subspecialties in law practice, together with the inadequacies of prevailing ethics regulation and the vagaries of ethics rules formulations from state to state have not served either the public or the legal profession well. Manipulation, motivated by politics and self-interest, of the ideology of the organized bar to adhere to ethical rules predicated on an antiquated and unrealistic model of a unified legal profession has likewise …

Legal Fictions And The Moral Imagination: Female Fictional Lawyers Encounter Professional Responsibility, Kathryn A. Lee, Elizabeth Morgan

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Nothing Lost, Nothing Owed: Supreme Court Upholds State Iolta Program In Brown V. Legal Foundation Of Washington, Robert C. Hughes Iii

Mercer Law Review

In a 5-4 decision in Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, the United States Supreme Court held that a state law that (1) requires lawyers and limited practitioner officers ("LPOs") to deposit client funds that cannot otherwise generate net-earning for their clients into an interest on lawyer's trust account ("IOLTA account") and (2) mandates that the interest produced on those funds be transferred to a different owner for a legitimate public use could constitute a per se taking of the clients' right to that interest, but no compensation is owed to such clients when they suffer no net loss. …

Save A Little Room For Me: The Necessity Of Naming As Inventors Practitioners Who Conceive Of Claimed Subject Matter, David Hricik, Alexandra Geczi, Zachary Thomas

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses ethical and malpractice issues arising from the fact that attorneys who prosecute patents almost inevitably add to the inventor's original disclosure to the attorney. In the course of drafting a patent application-a process in which the attorney describes, necessarily in his own words, what the client has invented-the attorney will, at minimum, contribute ideas, thoughts, and means of expression that the client had not used. The application is not a verbatim transcript of an interview with the client; it is the creation of the patent lawyer. ...

However, under established law governing inventorship and derivation, seldom during …

Whats The Harm?: Rethinking The Role Of Domestic Violence Advocates And The Unauthorized Practice Of Law, Suzanne J. Schmitz

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Lisa Schechtman On Social Work And Human Rights: A Foundation For Policy And Practice By Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp., Lisa Schechtman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Social Work and Human Rights: A Foundation for Policy and Practice by Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp.

From The Trenches: Narrative Of An Assistant Public Defender, C. D. Rodatore

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

To: Client@Workplace.Com: Privilege At Risk?, 23 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 75 (2004), Dion Messer

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

As more attorneys now days use the e-mail as their primary source of communication with their clients, new issues arise regarding the potential threat to attorney-client communication privilege resulting from the standard and systematic employer monitoring of their employees e-mails. Indeed employers monitor their employees’ computer use and in some cases terminate employees as result of this monitoring, for various reasons such as to increase of employee productivity and efficiency, protect their public image, prevent workplace harassment, protect their Intellectual Property assets and their network capacity. Given the systematic workplace monitoring but also the fact that contrary to the American …

Law, Human Rights, Realism And The “War On Terror”, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror by Michael Ignatieff. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 212pp.

For Any Reason Or No Reason At All: Reconciling Employment-At-Will With The Rights Of Texas Workers After Mission Petroleum Carriers Inc. V. Solomon., Jason P. Lemons

St. Mary's Law Journal

Since its inception, Texas has been a favored destination for both up-start entrepreneurs and established corporations. One of the less heralded, but nonetheless significant factors that makes Texas so attractive to businesses is its long-standing devotion to the doctrine of at-will employment. The doctrine generally states that any employment relationship not governed by contract or a statutory provision is terminable at any time by either the employer or the employee for any reason or no reason at all. At-will employment has been praised by courts and commentators for the flexibility it offers both parties in decision making. Nevertheless, the at-will …

The Texas Cave Bug And The California Arroyo Toad Take On The Constitution's Commerce Clause., Daniel J. Lowenberg

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Playing The Probate Card: A Plaintiff's Guide To Transfer To Statutory Probate Court., Joseph R. Marrs

St. Mary's Law Journal

Plaintiffs and defendants in tort litigation by or against a probate estate can be better-litigated in statutory probate court. Since the 1970s, Texas probate courts have steadily risen to power. The Texas Supreme Court attempted to curtail this practice in Seay v. Hall. The Texas legislature overruled Seay and continued to expanded the jurisdiction of statutory probate courts. Despite the continuing “merry dance” between the legislation and judicial review, the legitimate purpose of expanding lawsuits to probate court remains that of efficiently resolving lawsuits linked to guardianship or decedents’ estates while preserving all parties’ interests. The author uses an example …

Legal Malpractice In Texas: Examining Selected Cases And Forecasting Future Trrends Third Annual Symposium On Legal Malpractice & Professional Responsibility: Symposium Presentations., Wallace B. Jefferson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Little hard data exists concerning legal malpractice in Texas. What’s more, few legal law malpractice rulings are published. To date, there are only fifty written opinions on legal malpractice from Texas intermediate appellate courts. The activity that most often gave rise to a claim of legal malpractice involved the preparation, filing, and transmittal of documents, accounting for about a quarter of all claims. In San Antonio, Chief Justice Alma Lopez of the Fourth District Court of Appeals discussed common issues she sees in her courtroom. The issues ranged from failures to follow simple court rules to more substantial failures of …

Predatory Paternity Establishment: A Critical Analysis Of The Acknowledgment Of Paternity Process In Texas., Anne Greenwood

St. Mary's Law Journal

Child support programs across the nation are struggling to achieve even meager recovery of the financial support children need from their parents. Obtaining child support payments from men who are not fathers and who unknowingly signed their rights away is not a sound long-term policy. States must ensure that children are supported and their custodial mothers receive assistance from non-custodial fathers. Logically, the law should only compel a man to support a child he fathered. If a man chooses to assume not only the financial obligation but also the relationship which belongs to the biological father; then such agreement must …

Family Violence Protective Orders In Texas And Appelate Review: Are They Meant For Each Other., Manuel C. Maltos

St. Mary's Law Journal

Historically, protective orders have been viewed as an effective civil legal recourse for those affected by family violence. Title Four of the Texas Family Code governs these protective orders and sets forth the requirements for obtaining such an order. With consistent improvements to Title Four, the legislature has responded to society's decreasing tolerance of family violence. As a result, now the Family Code mandates the issuance of a protective order as provided by Title Four, regardless of whether a divorce is pending. Further legislative efforts also lengthened the maximum duration of a protective order from one year to two years. …

Stranded In The Wastelands Of Unregulated Roadway Police Powers: Can Reasonable Officers Ever Rescue Us., Keith S. Hampton

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article describes the present state of roadway police power and explores the vulnerability of drivers and occupants to police abuse, specifically using pretextual stops. Today, state and federal courts have made many police power accommodations to the constitutional reasonableness requirement. Current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence justifies almost all conceivable police seizures of people in vehicles. If the police officer can point out any traffic law violation, he can arrest. And if he can arrest under those circumstances, then the already blurred line between detentions and arrest becomes inconsequential, constitutionally speaking. This Article proposes that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals …

"Bonded & Insured?": The Future Of Mandatory Insurance Coverage And Disclosure Rules For Kentucky Attorneys, Nicholas A. Marsh

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.