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Full-Text Articles in Law
Agency And Equity: Why Do We Blame Clients For Their Lawyers' Mistakes, Adam Liptak
Agency And Equity: Why Do We Blame Clients For Their Lawyers' Mistakes, Adam Liptak
Michigan Law Review
If you were to ask a child whether it would be fair to execute a prisoner because his lawyer had made a mistake, the answer would be no. You might even get a look suggesting that you had asked a pretty stupid question. But judges treat the issue as a hard one, relying on a theory as casually accepted in criminal justice as it is offensive to principles of moral philosophy. This theory holds that the lawyer is the client's agent. What the agent does binds the principal. But clients and lawyers fit the agency model imperfectly. Agency law is …
Misunderstanding Lawyers' Ethics, Monroe H. Freedman, Abbe Smith
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 …
Give Them Back Their Lives: Recognizing Client Narrative In Case Theory, Binny Miller
Give Them Back Their Lives: Recognizing Client Narrative In Case Theory, Binny Miller
Michigan Law Review
This article is about case theory and its implications for incorporating client narratives in litigation. In seeking to understand the connections between voice, narrative, and case theory, I look not only to theory but to my experience as a clinical teacher and criminal defense attorney. I explore how the practice of lawyering can be reconstructed to embrace a greater role for clients in constructing case theories, both through the images of the client the lawyer presents in the case theory and through active client participation in developing and choosing the case theory. Although one aim of case theory is to …
Knowledge About Legal Sanctions, Stephen Mcg. Bundy, Einer Elhauge
Knowledge About Legal Sanctions, Stephen Mcg. Bundy, Einer Elhauge
Michigan Law Review
Ironically, the dictum that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" itself illustrates selective transmission because, despite the widespread dissemination of this maxim to the public, ignorance of the law often is a permissible defense in actual adjudication. The divergence between the maxim and reality is a form of selective transmission that encourages individuals to learn the law, which improves their behavior, but avoids any injustice that would arise from punishing uninformed individuals for conduct they reasonably believed was lawful. We aim to offer a more systematic account of whether and when knowledge about legal sanctions, and restrictions on the …
The Public Defender, Robert R. Kimball
The Public Defender, Robert R. Kimball
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Public Defender by Lisa J. McIntyre
Poor People's Lawyers In Transition, Michigan Law Review
Poor People's Lawyers In Transition, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Poor People's Lawyers in Transition by Jack Katz
The Attorney-Client Privilege And The Corporate Client: Where Do We Go After Upjohn?, Michigan Law Review
The Attorney-Client Privilege And The Corporate Client: Where Do We Go After Upjohn?, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Part I of this Note examines two of the more popular standards, the Seventh Circuit's "subject matter test" and the Eighth Circuit's "modified subject matter test" and concludes that neither approach is entirely consistent with the purposes of the privilege. Part II argues that the courts should adopt the Eighth Circuit's test with two further modifications. One revision is but a demand for clarification and consistency: the courts should explicitly adopt Dean Wigmore's legal advice requirement for corporate clients. The other modification is more radical: the command requirement should be eliminated. Under this approach, every employee may stand in the …
Prospective Waiver Of The Right To Disqualify Counsel For Conflicts Of Interest, Michigan Law Review
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 Pursuit Of A Client's Interest, Warren Lehman
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 Legal Profession: Client Interests, Professional Roles, And Social Hierarchies, John P. Heinz, Edward O. Laumann
The Legal Profession: Client Interests, Professional Roles, And Social Hierarchies, John P. Heinz, Edward O. Laumann
Michigan Law Review
There is a natural urge to study the extreme. The extreme case is likely to be conspicuous and dramatic. Sociological research on the American legal profession has not, for the most part, resisted the urge. The best-known studies examine lawyers at the extremes of the profession's prestige hierarchy-e.g., Carlin's study of solo practitioners and Smigel's study of the Wall Street lawyer. The profession's center has more often been neglected and few data are available on the bar's overall social structure. Ladinsky's study .of Detroit lawyers covers all types and specialities, and contributes substantially to our understanding of the …
The Corporate And Securities Adviser, The Public Interest, And Professional Ethics, Simon M. Lorne
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 …
Evidence--Privileged Communications--The Attorney-Client Privilege In The Corporate Setting: A Suggested Approach, Michigan Law Review
Evidence--Privileged Communications--The Attorney-Client Privilege In The Corporate Setting: A Suggested Approach, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note will first review the development of the personal attorney-client privilege and the extent to which the term "client" has been expanded for use with that privilege. Then, the development of the corporate attorney-client privilege will be examined with an eye toward isolating the tests that the courts have used to define the extent of the term "client." Finally, with the results of these examinations in mind, an approach will be suggested that, if adopted by the courts, could effectively eliminate the confusion that presently exists with regard to the scope of the attorney-client privilege in the corporate setting.
Brownell: Legal Aid In The United States., Glenn R. Winters
Brownell: Legal Aid In The United States., Glenn R. Winters
Michigan Law Review
A Review of LEGAL AID IN THE UNITED STATES. By Emery A. Brownell.