Law Commons^™

Access To Law Or Access To Lawyers? Master's Programs In The Public Educational Mission Of Law Schools, Mark Burge

Faculty Scholarship

The general decline in juris doctor (“J.D.”) law school applicants and enrollment over the last decade has coincided with the rise of a new breed of law degree. Whether known as a master of jurisprudence, juris master, master of legal studies, or other names, these graduate degrees all have a target audience in common: adult professionals who neither are nor seek to become practicing attorneys. Inside legal academia and among the practicing bar, these degrees have been accompanied by expressed concerns that they detract from the traditional core public mission of law schools—educating lawyers. This Article argues that non-lawyer master’s …

Online Legal Document Providers And The Public Interest: Using A Certification Approach To Balance Access To Justice And Public Protection, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

The Internet and electronic communications have revolutionized how consumers obtain legal information and assistance. The availability of legal forms and services has developed at lightning speed and countless consumers are using these forms, rather than consulting attorneys. At the same time, many regulators of the legal profession appear to be frozen in time. Some take the position that the provision of interactive forms amounts to the unauthorized practice of law and others question arrangements that appear to involve the sharing of legal fees with non-lawyers. Even for those interested in regulating the provision of on-line services, one complication to doing …

Righting The Ship: What Courts Are Still Getting Wrong About Electronic Discovery, Tanya Pierce

Faculty Scholarship

What happens when law changes but courts and lawyers ignore the changes? On December 1, 2015, amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. One of those amendments includes a sweeping change to Rule 37(e), dealing with the availability of sanctions in federal courts for lost or destroyed electronically stored information (ESI). In the last few years, however, a number of courts have interpreted the amended rule in ways at odds with its plain language and underlying policies, and a surprising number of courts continue to ignore the amended rule altogether. This article examines those trends and …

The Paradox Of Minority Attorney Satisfaction, Milan Markovic, Gabrielle Plickert

Faculty Scholarship

A substantial literature documents the challenges faced by minority attorneys in the legal profession, ranging from underrepresentation in prestigious practice settings and lower incomes to discrimination from fellow lawyers, clients, and judges. In light of the foregoing, one would expect minority attorneys to regret their decisions to attend law school and become lawyers. Yet, empirical research indicates that minority attorneys are predominately satisfied with their decision to become attorneys and that their satisfaction is on par with that of white attorneys. How to account for this seeming paradox?

Drawing on data from a large cross-section of Texas lawyers, this is …

Assigned Counsel Mentoring Programs: Results And Lessons From Two Pilot Projects, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

Working with a team of three subject matter experts, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association implemented and evaluated two pilot mentoring projects aimed at helping lawyers who serve as assigned counsel. This report discusses the program design, evaluation outcomes, and offers guidance through lessons learned for other jurisdictions interested in introducing assigned counsel mentoring programs. The author of the report was the principal investigator who evaluated the programs.

This project was supported by grant number 2015-AJ-BX-K043 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs to the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. The opinions, findings, and …

Law's Enterprise: Argumentation Schemes & Legal Analogy, Brian N. Larson

Faculty Scholarship

Reasoning by legal analogy has been described as mystical, reframed by skeptics using the deductive syllogism, and called “no kind of reasoning at all” by Judge Posner. Arguments by legal analogy happen every day in courtrooms, law offices, and law-school classrooms, and they are the essence of what we mean when we talk of thinking like a lawyer. But we have no productive and normative theory for creating and evaluating them. Entries in the debate over the last 25 years by Professors Sunstein, Schauer, Brewer, Weinreb, and others leave us at an impasse: The ‘skeptics’ are too focused on the …

Mandatory Legal Malpractice Insurance: Exposing Lawyers' Blind Spots, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

The legal landscape for lawyers’ professional liability in the United States is changing. In 2018, Idaho implemented a new rule requiring that lawyers carry legal malpractice insurance. The adoption of the Idaho rule was the first move in forty years by a state to require legal malpractice insurance since Oregon mandated lawyer participation in a malpractice insurance regime. Over the last two years, a few states have considered whether their jurisdictions should join Oregon and Idaho in requiring malpractice insurance for lawyers in private practice. To help inform the discussion, the article examines different positions taken in the debate on …

Rise Of The Robot Lawyers?, Milan Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

The advent of artificial intelligence has provoked considerable speculation about the future of the American workforce, including highly educated professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Although most commentators are alarmed by the prospect of intelligent machines displacing millions of workers, this is not so with respect to the legal sector. Media accounts and some legal scholars envision a future where intelligent machines perform the bulk of legal work, and legal services are less expensive and more accessible. This future is purportedly at hand as lawyers struggle to compete with technologically savvy alternative legal service providers.

This Article challenges the notion …

Community Law Practice, Luz E. Herrera

Faculty Scholarship

Community-embedded law practices are small businesses that are crucial in addressing the legal needs that arise in neighborhoods. Lawyers in these practices attend to recurring legal needs, contribute to building a diverse profession, and spur community development of modest-income communities through legal education and services. Solo practitioners and small firm lawyers represent the largest segment of the lawyer population in the United States, yet their contributions to addressing the legal needs of modest-income clients are rarely recognized or studied. This essay sheds light on the characteristics, motivations, and challenges these law practices face in providing access to justice to modest-means …

The Three Ages Of Modern American Lawyering And The Current Crisis In The Legal Profession And Legal Education, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

During the first months of 2018, two short pieces on legal education were published. One reported on the results of a survey of college graduates, law school graduates, and holders of other advanced degrees. The study found that today’s law graduates were less likely than pre-recession counterparts to report that the J.D. degree was worth the cost and more likely to have second thoughts about the decision to go to law school. The findings prompted Aaron Taylor, executive director of the Access Lex Center for Legal Education Excellence, to conclude that there are “two distinct worlds of law graduates” made …