Law Commons^™

Paternalistic Interventions In Civil Rights And Poverty Law: A Case Study Of Environmental Justice, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

Low-income communities of color in Miami and in cities across the nation both share aspirations of equal justice and democratic participation and suffer the burdens of legal underrepresentation and political disenfranchisement. Such burdens become crippling when, as in Miami, local legal aid offices, public interest organizations, and bar associations lack the resources to provide meaningful private access to justice or to muster significant public engagement in the political process. These burdens become especially crippling when, again as in Miami, local and state governments adopt policies that engender inner-city neglect, economic displacement, and racial exclusion. In these circumstances, volunteer lawyers from …

Misunderstanding Lawyers' Ethics, Monroe H. Freedman, Abbe Smith

Michigan Law Review

The title of Daniel Markovits's book, A Modern Legal Ethics, gives the impression that it is a comprehensive treatise on contemporary lawyers' ethics. The contents of the book, however, are both more limited and more expansive than the title suggests. Markovits's treatment of lawyers' ethics concerns itself with what he conceives to be the pervasive guilty conscience of practicing lawyers over their "professional viciousness" (p. 36), and how lawyers can achieve a guilt-free professional identity "worthy of ... commitment" (p. 2). Markovits's goal in the book is to "articulat[e] a powerful and distinctively lawyerly virtue" (p. 2), one that …

The Ethics Of Criminal Defense, William H. Simon

Michigan Law Review

A large literature has emerged in recent years challenging the standard conception of adversary advocacy that justifies the lawyer in doing anything arguably legal to advance the client's ends. This literature has proposed variations on an ethic that would increase the lawyer's responsibilities to third parties, the public, and substantive ideals of legal merit and justice.

With striking consistency, this literature exempts criminal defense from its critique and concedes that the standard adversary ethic may be viable there. This paper criticizes that concession. I argue that the reasons most commonly given to distinguish the criminal from the civil do not …

Can A Good Lawyer Be A Bad Person, Stephen Gillers

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Good Lawyer: Lawyers' Roles and Lawyers' Ethics edited by David Luban and The Adversary System: A Description and Defense by Stephan Landsman

Sec Disciplinary Proceedings Against Attorneys Under Rule 2 ( E ), Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note reassesses SEC authority to discipline attorneys under rule 2( e ). Part I explores the history of rule 2( e) proceedings against attorneys and the troublesome policy issues raised by the SEC's new approach to rule 2(e) enforcement. Part II examines the SEC's claim that general rulemaking provisions give it authority to discipline attorneys. The Note concludes that a proper construction of statutes and case law bars rule 2( e) proceedings against attorneys.

Prospective Waiver Of The Right To Disqualify Counsel For Conflicts Of Interest, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Part I of the Note discusses canon 4, first explaining the presumptions and policies that underlie it, then arguing that courts should enforce prospective waivers of the presumption of shared confidences when conditioned on the law firm's effective screening of client confidences - keeping them from the attorneys within the firm who will take part in the adverse representation. Part II turns to canon 5, and argues that prospective waivers of the presumption of diluted loyalties should be enforced against clients moving to disqualify law firms for a canon 5 violation.

The Attorney-Client Privilege After Attorney Disclosure, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the interests that must be balanced in determining when an attorney's disclosure waives the attorney-client privilege. Part I presents three judicial standards defining the class of attorney disclosures that waive the privilege: the traditional client consent rule that only attorney disclosures to which the client has consented constitute waiver; the broader "implied authority" view that attorney disclosures made with the client's consent or with an intent to further the client's cause constitute waiver; and the still more expansive view that all attorney disclosures falling within the scope of the attorney's agency authority to act for the client …

The Pursuit Of A Client's Interest, Warren Lehman

Michigan Law Review

There has been recently a resurgence of interest in how the lawyer serves his client. Much of that interest has been occasioned by the indigestibility of the idea that the lawyer is, as it is said, a hired gun. There are those who think that instead the lawyer ought to act toward his client as a therapist. Others are concerned with rationalizing for the lawyer the ethical discomforts of servantship (which many might guess have been brought to the fore by Watergate). Yet others see the client as victim of a structure - represented by the lawyer - that frustrates …

The Corporate And Securities Adviser, The Public Interest, And Professional Ethics, Simon M. Lorne

Michigan Law Review

It is the thesis of this Article that we, as a society, need to make deliberate decisions about the proper role of the corporate adviser, and, when that function has been defined, to develop a structure within which it can be performed. As the Article makes clear, the logical choices involve what might be described as either revolutionary change or reactionary change. That is, the current trends should either be accelerated or reversed; the present situation is intolerable. While the author will contend that the case for shifting into reverse is more persuasive, getting into a gear, and out of …

The Other Government, Daniel D. Polsby

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Other Government by Mark J. Green